The forgotten heroes
by mad-man
Summary: What ever happened to the original heroes? We know one of them is now Diablo but what about the others? Rated for gore.
1. Default Chapter

Has anyone wondered where the other heroes are during this new battle against Diablo?

I don't own any rights to Diablo or Diablo2 or hellfire or LOD or any thing else I'm forgetting to list. The idea for this story is my own. Leanne is my own char, don't try to steal her or she will skin you alive.

I am trying a bit of song in here. If you want the full effect find a copy of a J.S. Bach string concerto. Any string concerto will work but I like Bach.

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The forgotten heroes.

C) 1

In a cramped mess tent dozens rowdy would-be heroes drank and told stories of fighting great beasts with only a club or bare hands. A few Rogues looked on at the drunken men with great distaste, hating the need to fight beside them. The Rogues missed their home; the great and ancient monastery had been over run with dark demons and vile corruptions of their sisters.

One of the men fell over and passed out from too much ale. A pair of the Rogues came forward and grasped the large smelly man under the arms and proceeded to drag him out the tent. The two Rogues dumped the man under a wagon to sleep it off; they were about to enter the tent once more when a call rose up near the wall. The two Rogues were very similar in appearance. Both had red brown hair and green eyes and tall lean frames. Their only differences were that one was shorter than the other and each of them preferred a different kind of bow.

They had their bows strung and drawn before they even reached the wall a few yards away. Kashya was speaking with someone thru the gate, her tone wasn't any harsher than normal so the two Rogues assumed it was another farm hand turned hero. Kashya stepped back and swung the gate open a few feet, letting a slim woman slip in before slamming the gate shut behind her.

The woman was tall and dark haired with a deep tan that was beginning to fade, she wore a heavy cloak that hid her form. Her face was gentle and kind but shallow with hardship and hunger, she looked ready to trade insults with hell itself then sing a rousing course.

She dropped a heavy bag to the ground beside her and held out her hand to Kashya. Kashya didn't even cast a glance at the hand before turning and walking away. As Kashya passed the two Rogues she shouted an order, "find the traveler a tent and help her settle in." the two Rogues hurried to obey, one sizing the bag and the other leading off toward the tents set aside for outsiders and merchants.

The woman smiled at the two Rogues after they had lead her to a small tent near Charsi's makeshift forge. She dropped her bag in a chest inside before turning to the two, "my name is Leanne. I am but a humble bard come from a far distant town of troubles. Would I be able to perform for your sisters in return for your protection?"

This was rather surprising for the two because they had meet few bards or other entertainers that knew how to address the Rogues. Or anyone, warrior or not, that traveled alone at night anymore. This woman was more than she appeared to be.

The taller of the two Rogues nodded and gestured to the other, "yes traveler me and my sister would very much like to hear your songs but we cannot guarantee your protection you should talk to Akara or Kashya first." She turned to go but her friend stayed her for a moment. "Oh, I'm sorry Leanne. This is a time of trouble for us and I am forgetting my manners. My name is Aliza and my silent sister is Isolde. Sleep well and may the great eye watch over you." With all the pleasantries done the two Rogues turned and left the bard standing there with a faint smile on her lips.

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The next day a simple awning was put up near the central fire, put there to keep the near-constant rain off someone's head. The entire encampment was talking about the strange woman who arrived last night claming to be a bard. Many found it hard to believe a lone woman could survive out on the plains without some skill in battle. Others wondered where she came from and what songs and ballads she would know.

Akara had given the woman her permission to perform, against Kashya's protests that it would be a distraction. Kashya began stalking around the camp shouting orders for the walls to be watched and the gates guarded. The Rogues knew not to cross her when she was like this. Kashya was new to the rank of 'battle eagle' but only her insecurity showed it.

Aliza and Isolde were among the few Rogues that had no work to do at the moment, so they went to hear Leanne's songs. They found seats around the fire as everyone began to gather. Most of the men who were sober enough to fight went of with a small group of Rogues to clear out a cave full of demons and undead. Those around the fire where mostly those unable to fight or merchants staying near their wares and the few refugees from local farmsteads.

Leanne came out from behind the giant water cart and walked under the awning. As she sat down she drew a small harp from under her heavy cloak. She ran her fingers along the bow of the wood and drew a few strings tight. The crowd was talking in hushed whispers about her and her cloak, wondering if she was hiding some gross deformity.

The entire encampment fell silent as her fingers brushed lightly across the strings, letting a gentle sound into the air. Her finger began to dance, making the harp sing like a hundred birds. She stood up, still playing as she began to sing. (Start music)

_Hear now,_

_The gentle cry of the newborn babe_

_Listen to the mother's song_

_Hear me,_

_Fear not the dark night_

_Mother will chase away the demons_

_Hear not the dark _

_Hear not the howls_

_Hear only,_

_Mothers voice_

_Hush child,_

_Sleep now that mama's here_

_Worry not my little son,_

_Rest easy my young daughter,_

_Mother will save you._

_Mother will save you…_

Leanne sat down with the last verse, her fingers slowing on the harp. All around the encampment everyone sat in silence, forgotten was all tasks and chores. Leanne sat in silence with her head bowed. The drunkard that Aliza and Isolde had dumped under a wagon the night before threw his tankard to the ground. "That arnt no song. Lets hear the one of old mad King Leoric who lost his son and then his mind."

Leann sat up strait and cast a glare at the man; he withered under her gaze and sank down in an attempt to get away from her eyes. Her harp disappeared under her cloak and she stood up, her face hardening as she began another song with only the deep silence as music.

Lost in the dark 

_The child ran in fear_

_Terror hunted the frightened soul_

_The dark king searched_

_Under dark tomb and crypt_

_The dark king found not!_

_Terror had consumed the soul_

_Terror had warped the form_

_Terror had stolen the son_

_The dark king lost son and mind_

_The dark king flung himself into hate_

_And hate cursed him forever to rule _

_The dark king rules now those he sent to die._

_Laugh not at the dark king_

_He has lost more than many would ever have._

_Laugh not, laugh not…_

She walked off and disappeared into her tent before the last words had fully settled into everyone's mind. The whole encampment snapped back to life as everyone began to discuss this new song of a rather new legend. The tale of King Leoric was new to the world and thought of as a joke by many. Most in the encampment had not thought of what it would be like to lose everything because of their own hands.

Part of the gate exploded in fire as demons swarmed forward, trying to take the distracted defenders off guard. The Rogues reacted quickly, firing arrows into the masses of demons and beast. Those few warriors that had stayed behind now grabbed up their weapons and charged into the thick of it where the gates once stood.

Kashya stood near the praying Akara, firing freezing arrows into the demons. The defenders where being pushed back into the encampment, every beast that fell was replaced by another while the small demons simply climbed back to their feet and charged again. The encampment would soon fall.

From the shadow of the wall slipped a dark shape, it leapt at the invaders. As soon as light touched it, it was reviled to be a single girl. The way she tore thru the evil ranks with twin wrist blades she could only be a Viz-Jaq'taar, an assassin. She turned and cast two small orbs into the air before dashing back into the shadows. She faded away as the two orbs struck the trees, exploding and raining burning braches down on the demonic shamans hiding under them.

The defenders fought harder as they saw the small demons no longer rising after a deadly blow. The shadowy assassin appeared occasionally attacking where the fight was thickest. Akara had stopped praying and now watched the battle, she was the only one who saw Leanne come out from her tent and stand near the fire.

The battle was still raging strong as several undead began pushing past the demons and beasts. Powerful hits didn't faze them and the assassin's traps only left them singed but unharmed. Those few undead pushed past the defenders, leaving many warriors and Rogues lying dead.

The undead shuffled forward as the warriors tried to stop the rest of the enemy from following the undead. Kashya fired her arrows of ice as fast as she could, finally felling one of the undead. She had to drop her bow and draw her sword as three of the undead creatures turned to fight her. The last zombie shuffled forward, toward Akara, intent on the kill.

Akara didn't move, didn't finch as the zombie Corpse fire bore down on her. The zombie fell forward as its legs were cut from under it. Leanne had cast off her cloak reviling sparkling red leather armor, the Leather of Aut, stained trousers, and two of the finest, oldest most powerful daggers from ages past. The first one, Black Razor, had taken the legs from the powerful undead while the second, Wizardspike, drove deep into its back, piercing the black heart.

Leanne sheathed her daggers and drew her bow, Flamedart, she strung it with practiced ease before raining fiery arrows amongst the remaining demons and evil beasts. Her first shot pierced the heart of the remaining undead fighting Kashya. Kashya gave a snarl of aggravation before swooping up her own bow; the two of them thinned the ranks of the attackers with fire and ice.

Finally the last demon turned and ran, only to die with a burning arrow in its head. Akara wasted no time as she began ordering those standing to bring the wounded to her. Kashya started reordering the defenses and the merchants and farmhands began gathering tools for the repairs the walls and gates. None saw Leanne take her cloak and slip back in her tent, except a silent shadow near the walls.

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You want more? You just goanna have to wait. It shouldn't take me long to get the next chapter. This chapter only took me a few hours to write and proof.

There may be more 'songs' later but I have never written them before. If some one is willing to help with music selection and lyrics let me know.

Wizardspike, Leather of Aut, Flamedart, and Black Razor are all from the original Diablo and/or Hellfire. And no you haven't seen everything she has. Leanne is based off of my Bard from Hellfire; I made some changes but only to fit the story better.

I need names of warriors, barbarians and sorcerers. I am asking you readers for help because it took me 3HOURS to come up with Leanne. My bard is named 'dancer of death', I can't come up with names easily in fact I usually steal them from whatever books I have on hand.

HIT THAT REVIEW BUTTON!!!!


	2. FH chapter 2

Hello again fans, back with another chapter.

I don't own any rights to Diablo or Diablo2 or hellfire or LOD or any thing else I'm forgetting to list. The idea for this story is my own.

Leanne is my own char, don't try to steal her or she will skin you alive. Malcolm is my own char, try to steal him and he will feed you your own liver, in a light lemon sauce.

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The forgotten heroes.

C) 2

The next few days were uneventful as the encampment repaired the crude walls and patrolled no farther than a horns call from the encampment. Leanne was only seen just at dawn and near dusk, getting food from the mess tent and retreating back to her solitude.

The entire encampment was talking about Leanne. She was the first topic of the day and the best topic of rumor. Several of the farmhands said she was part succubus while the merchants said she was from across the sea. The only persons not speaking about Leanne was Akara and Kashya. Akara wasn't one to speak of rumors or falsities, and Kashya was in a foil temper over the battle and no one talked to her if they could avoid it.

Those who knew Kashya also knew that she wasn't upset about the battle or the fact that her sisters were distracted. They didn't know what she was upset about but they had a feeling that it had something to do with who Leanne was. Only two men in the encampment had any plausible idea of Leanne's past, Gheed and Warriv.

Gheed shared his thoughts with whoever would buy him an ale. Few listened to him because he had tricked almost everyone already. Gheed thought that Leanne might have been a sister of the sightless eye once, expelled from the order because of something she had done.

Warriv talked of his thoughts to no one but Charsi, and Charsi refused to tell anyone who asked what he had said. This only lead to more rumors, some even said the two had a romantic liaison planed.

Aliza and Isolde where hoping that Leanne would sing for the encampment again soon. At the moment the two sisters where getting ready to go out on patrol with a few other Rogues. The two Rogues had been pestered for anything they may have heard when Leanne first arrived, they had nothing to tell and soon where forgotten again.

Aliza and Isolde set off with three other sisters, they where going all the way out to the cold plains today. A few passing warriors had stopped at the encampment telling of increasing undead out near the monastery graveyard. Kashya had put the team together with some of the best scouts she still had. Kashya, and all the Rogues, took the desecrations of their ancestors as an insult worse than the loss of their home.

The scouting party made good speed across the blood moor and entered the cold plains. They moved carefully now staying low to the ground and away from any paths that may be watched. They had to stop and deal with small spined creatures occasionally but other than that they hadn't encountered any thing.

It was approaching noon when they heard a disturbance ahead. Aliza and Isolde were went ahead to see what it was. They came up to the edge of the path, hiding among the tall grasses. It looked as thou a pair of Wendigos where fighting over the bundle between them.

Aliza turned to slip away but Isolde caught her and pointed at the to shapes again as the clouds cleared for a moment, glinting of the armor that the large hulking man wore as he fought the giant beast with his bare hands. He was larger than any man the two Rogues had ever seen easily dwarfing the young barbarians that came to the camp to help fight. He wore plates of armor and had a strange helm upon his head. The bundle between him and the wendigo was a pack tied to several vicious and dangerous looking weapons.

They watched as the man snapped the arms of the beast and began pummeling it with his fists. The beast gave a roar of pain and attempted to flee, the man leapt forward and grasped the beast around its neck. With a crack, that the two Rogues could hear from their vantage point, the man spun the beast's short neck. The wendigo slumped to the ground dead as the man calmly picked up his bundle and began marching away down the path.

The two Rogues waited until the man disappeared around a bend before slipping back to where the other three Rogues waited. As they neared the tree they left the others at they slowed and gave a short whistle. When no reply came they slunk slowly around and looked down from a small rise, the three Rogues where dead and a pair of women stood nearby.

Aliza started forward to greet the women but Isolde stopped her and shook her head. Aliza didn't know why Isolde was worried the women looked familiar. One of the women turned back and ripped a jagged saber from the body of one of the Rogues. That was when Aliza saw why they looked familiar, they were Rogues. At least they once where. They had been corrupted by the same demonic energy that was defiling the monastery. Their skin was pale and their eyes filled with red, and strange black armor covered their bodies, leaving the soft curves of their flesh open to tempt and distract men.

Aliza griped her long bow and reached for an arrow. As she began to draw back the string of her bow she saw Isolde drawing an arrow back on her hunters bow. They both knew what target the other was aiming for because of years of training in preparation for battle. They both released their strings at once, a low strum as the strings snapped forward launching the iron tipped arrows.

The arrows hit only a second apart, piercing the hearts of the two corrupt women. The women slumped to the ground as a white mist leapt from their bodies with a scream before blowing away on the wind. The two Rogues readied their bows again and began moving away, hoping that the screams wouldn't attract any more creatures.

They had made good time getting farther towards the graveyard. They managed to avoid any creatures along the way, sneaking past them or going around. They now had to leave the tall grasses and enter the small valley where the graveyard rested between gently sloping cliffs. You could enter the valley from anywhere but leaving was difficult except by the gate the path left thru. The gates stood in an ancient stonewall that rested between the steepest parts of the cliff.

The two Rogues stopped at the edge of the tall grass, looking for any monsters that could be watching the gate. After several minutes they silently slipped forward, pausing only when they stood beside the shattered gates. Something had come along and hammered at the gates until the ancient iron bound wood shattered and fell. The way the gate laid it was only possible that it had been beaten inward, something had wanted in the graveyard.

They started forward, keeping to the shadows where they could and hiding under cover where they couldn't. They made their way forward past the shattered fences and among the hundreds of gravestones. Many of the graves had been torn open and the occasional skeleton wandered amongst them.

The two Rogues went forward killing what they could, they where heading to the only structures in the valley. The mausoleum and crypt, stood near each other separated by an ancient tree and the graves of the oldest sisters. They found a band of zombies slain near the iron fence that surrounded the inner graveyard.

As they crept past the side of the mausoleum they saw something they hadn't expected. An entire army of undead lay sprawled out torn to shreds, hundreds of walking abominations returned to rest. And now the man who had done it was chasing around a corrupt Rogue.

The corrupt Rogue was Blood Raven, one of the only Rogues who returned from Tristram. And she was the first to be corrupted. The man was none other than the giant that Aliza and Isolde had seen. He wielded a large mace-like club covered in spikes; in his other hand was a strange shield bearing a crest of a skull.

The giant man was tired and Aliza could see the many wounds that the undead had given him. He moved fast and struck hard but Blood Raven was faster, darting away from his swings and firing an arrow that flared with magic lightning and ice. The giant man was slowing; he would lose soon if he couldn't hit Blood Raven.

Aliza drew two arrows from her quiver, notching them both and praying for the sightless eye to guide her shots. She pulled back the string, feeling its power and waited for the perfect shot. Beside her Isolde was praying silently over her quiver, hoping her prayers would be answered. At last she picked up her bow and drew an arrow.

The giant man and stopped and leaned against a cracked tombstone. Blood Raven laughed as she stood before him, she didn't draw her bow she stepped forward. She stopped outside the man's reach and began speaking, whether because of the silence or because they where so focused the two Rogues heard every word. "Malcolm is this all the better you can do?"

The two Rogues waited because the great tree blocked their aim. Blood Raven continued to speak, "once you could have smashed down an army twice the size of this one and still have energy to carry a chest of gold. Now look at you, not even a few months later and you can even deal with undead without getting winded. I thought you would know how to fight your old friend."

Malcolm said something but the Rogues couldn't hear what. Blood Raven laughed, "You fool you think that the rest of us cared whether you lived or died. We merely needed a packhorse to carry our loot. You were useless, you rushed in and smashed everything and then drank most our healing potions after word."

Blood Raven laughed at something else Malcolm said before stepping back and drawing her bow. She took another step back as Malcolm struggled back onto his own feet. Aliza and Isolde released their arrows the second Blood Raven stepped clear of the tree. Aliza's two arrows struck first, sinking deep in Blood Raven's arm and wrist making her drop her bow. Even before the bow struck the ground Isolde's arrow struck her high in the shoulder, sending a freezing chill thru her body.

Blood Raven snarled in pain and began turning towards the two Rogues, she was only slightly slowed from the icy attack. The strange club in Malcolm hand glowed softly and her stood up taller, wounds disappearing from his body. He turned and lunged at Blood Raven who was shuddering with every strike of an arrow as she advanced on the firing Rogues.

Malcolm lifted his club high and slammed it downward, shattering Blood Raven's shoulder and knocking her forward. Before she could move he brought his club down again, and again until she was dead and still. He stooped and pulled a small purple vial from her belt and drained its contents in a gulp. The last of his wound disappeared and he turned and went back to the tree. The two Rogues approached, finding Malcolm lifting his pack and bundle of weapons.

They stood a few meters away and waited silently as he readied his pack. He turned and looked at the two women for the first time. He grinned and held out a gore-covered hand, "hello sisters. My name is Malcolm from the northlands of the tribe shadow wolf. My deed here is done and I find myself in your debt, I will come with you and fight alongside you." He turned without a response and started for the entrance to the valley.

The two Rogues looked at each other before rushing to guild the man back to the encampment. Aliza could only think that her life was getting far to complicated. She was surprised to find herself liking this adventure, and wondering what would happen next.

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Ok there is another chapter and another hero, the barbarian. Again this is based off of one of my own chars from hellfire. I forgot to mention the names of his gear; so far we have seen his Split Skull Shield, The Protector, OverLord's Helm and Arkaine's Valor.

You read it so REVIEW IT! NOW! Or I won't update as fast.


	3. FH chapter 3

Here you go, another chapter to read.

I don't own any rights to Diablo or Diablo2 or hellfire or LOD or any thing else I'm forgetting to list. The idea for this story is my own.

Leanne is my own char, don't try to steal her or she will skin you alive. Malcolm is my own char, try to steal him and he will feed you your own liver, in a light lemon sauce. Don't mess with Avian, she likes to poison people.

I cant be the first one to try this idea but I don't want to look for it, anyone seen one?

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The forgotten heroes.

C) 3

Aliza and Isolde had spent much the night telling of the defeat of Blood Raven. They and Malcolm had made it back to the encampment near midnight. Malcolm had simply lain down by the fire and using his pack and weapons as a pillow fell asleep without a word to anyone.

Kashya kept the two Rogues up telling and retelling everything that had happened. Warriv and several others where nearby listing to the tale being told, even before the tale was done Malcolm was seen as a man to be respected. Aliza and Isolde weren't given a second thought, even if they had been vital to Blood Raven's defeat.

It was nearly noon before the two awoke the next day. A delicious smell was spreading throughout the entire camp. Aliza and Isolde begin wandering towards the smell, many others in the camp could smell it as well. They finally found the source of the smell at the center of the camp.

Malcolm had gathered several pans and great pots; he had the pots sitting in the depths of the fire boiling with thick wonderful stews full of meats and vegetables. The pans sat on glowing coals with frying bacons and steaks, the meat covered in rich red spices and hole onions. Bundles of green leaves sat beside the pans smelling of drying fruits and simmering greens.

Malcolm watched over it all himself stirring the stews with the butt of a javelin and servings out heaping plates to everyone. He talked to Warriv as he cooked; they talked of places to find seasonings and where they could be sold and for how much. Currently Warriv seamed to trying to get Malcolm to sell him a small pouch of seeds.

Aliza and Isolde took plates and stopped before Malcolm for a serving of the delicious food. Malcolm laughed at Warriv and dropped the pouch into his hand before turning to the Rogues. He begins heaping meats and vegetables onto their plates covering everything in a layer of thick stew.

The two begin to walk away when, "where are you going my friends. Sit here and we will talk. After all I owe you my life, and by my honor I will serve you." He pushed the two down to logs beside the fire and turned back to Warriv. Warriv was trying to give Malcolm a pouch of gold in return for the seeds but Malcolm merely gave a merry laugh and pushed the gold back into Warriv's hands.

As Warriv walked off counting seeds Malcolm turned to the two Rogues, "I have thanked you and pledged you my aide but I still do not know your names." He turned back to the fire reaching into the flames barehanded and turned the bundles of leaves.

Isolde merely shook her head while Aliza waved her hands in dismissal, "no you don't need to serve us if you wish pledge to guard the encampment and help Kashya and Akara retake the monastery." Even before she finished speaking she could see that Malcolm wouldn't change his mind.

Indeed Malcolm's smile faded as he filled a plate for a merchant. He took a knife from his belt and began carving a root he took from his pack, "I was not saved by Kashya or Akara. But if you plain to retake the monastery I will fight with you, just you two. I care not for the pass; I have traveled over the great mountains before without needing a path. But I have pledged to do what you need and so I will fight beside you until I die or the monastery is yours again."

Aliza speared the last peace of meat on her plate and wondered how she was going to explain this to Kashya. "Hello again North man." Aliza looked up and found Leanne had come up behind Malcolm. The root in Malcolm's hand was crushed and his face was a wreck of emotions.

Leanne came and sat down beside him, looking even smaller when near his bulk. Malcolm turned and stared at her in disbelieve, "little Leanne? But how? I thought you had stayed behind after I left."

Leanne picked up a plate and handed it to Malcolm. As he began piling food on it she continued to speak, "I wanted to stay behind but the day after you left I needed to leave. I heard that my sister was living near Lut Gholein. I had to go and see if it was her."

Malcolm took a plate of stew for himself and ate as he thought over what Leanne had said. The two Rogues sat silently, wanting to hear where these strange warriors had come from. Leanne just ate silently for a while and Malcolm let her as he tended the cooking.

Malcolm begin chopping herbs but stopped, "have you heard about Maeko?" he didn't wait for Leanne to answer. "I heard about her a few days ago. I went looking for her hoping I could save her. I found her the other day; she was razing an army to slaughter everyone. I couldn't save her but I did stop her and her army." He tossed the herbs in a pan and glared into the fire.

Leanne sat aside her half empty plate and put her hand on Malcolm's arm. She didn't say a word, only offered he silent condolences. Isolde took Aliza's arm and pulled her away from the fire. Aliza went with her trying hard not to think of all the sisters she had lost.

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Aliza and Isolde where guarding he gates that afternoon, it wasn't the best job to have. All they had to do is watch for enemies and let the patrols and heroes in and out. Aliza spent much of the time trying to curb her curiosity over Malcolm and Leanne.

The two of them where obviously close friends and they each must have been thru a good deal together. Also when Malcolm spoke of Blood Raven he called her Maeko, her true name. Most outsiders only knew a Rogues battle name, and they only used their true names if they had fought beside each other.

And Leanne had sung of King Leoric as if she had met him. Every thing that Aliza knew about the two of them kept telling her that they had fought at Tristram, possibly together. If the two strangers had fought at Tristram than maybe they could really help reclaim the monastery.

She was jostled from her thoughts as Isolde's flicked her ear. Aliza looked out into the fog searching for what Isolde had seen. Just out past the edge of the fog two shapes moved, one moved slow and steady while the other ran around it. As the shapes came closer she could see that they both where thin and pale.

As the faster shape came into the light of the torches Aliza saw it was a skeleton, Isolde released an arrow that bounced of the undead ribs. Aliza drew back and arrow of her own when the creature simply collapsed into dust. The second shape came into the light with his hands raised. It was young man, pale of skin and hair that wore dark clothes covered in bits of bone.

Isolde turned and went to fetch Kashya, leaving Aliza to question the Necromancer. Aliza dropped from her perch on the wall and stepped to the gate to question the dark mage. The man approached the gate with slow steady strides, not the least bit afraid of the many arrows pointed at his heart.

Aliza opened the gate just enough to slip out it herself, "what is your purpose here?" she didn't try to hide the distaste in her voice. The necro merely gave her a sick little grin.

Kashya came storming out the gate almost slamming it shut on Isolde. She took one glance at the necro before turning and reentering the encampment shouting back to take him to Akara. Aliza and Islode turned and guided him into the back of the encampment towards Akara's small tent, trusting the other Rogues to guard the gates.

As they neared the small tent they could see Akara speaking with the assassin that had helped protect the encampment a few nights ago. The assassin was hardly seen in camp and everyone wondered if what she was doing. She was only seen when she came to Gheed to sell something she had mysteriously found.

The Rogues stopped a respectable distance away but the necro simply strode forward stoping next to the assassin. The assassin flinched away from him but continued to speak with Akara. The necro began rolling a short wand back and forth across his knuckles. Akara turned back into her tent and withdrew a small bundle; she gave it to the assassin in exchange for a small pouch of coins.

The two rogues expected the assassin to fade away into the shadows like usual but instead she walked towards them. She stopped before them and openly examined them, Aliza felt like a side of beef about to be purchased. The assassin bowed at he waist and stood again, her eyes never leaving the two rogues, "hello friends. I was hoping to find you soon, I would wish to talk to about something vital."

Aliza and Isolde didn't even get a chance to object as the assassin led them thru the encampment to a small tent against the walls. The assassin sat down on the narrow cot inside and waved the two towards small piles of furs against the other side of the tent. Aliza didn't like this in the least, she was stuck in a small tent with an assassin and the assassin wanted to talk to her.

Isolde was so afraid that her eyes had grown wide and darted around like a trapped animal. Aliza looked at the assassin to find her grinning, she was enjoying the fear she inspired in the two rogues. Aliza straitened her spine and glared back at the young woman, "what is it you need to discuss, murderer."

The grin on her face disappeared and Isolde grew pale thinking her death was here. The assassin's face hardened before she spoke, "my name is Avian, you two are called Aliza and Isolde. I am here investigating someone believed to possess arcane knowledge of evil magic. No one in this camp has been around them as much as you two, so your going to tell me everything you know and never tell anyone that I talked to you about it. I need to know everything about Leanne and Malcolm."

Aliza didn't even attempt to hide her fear of the assassin. For the next hour she told the assassin everything she had seen or heard when around Leanne and Malcolm. Isolde spent the entire time latched tightly to Aliza's arm, refusing to let go.

When the two finally stumbled out of the tent Aliza couldn't help but be ashamed that she had been so afraid of Avian. She and Isolde went towards the campfire, hoping to find some of Malcolm's delicious cooking. When the reached the fire they saw Malcolm was gone and so was Leanne. Isolde ran back along the tents while Aliza went to ask Warriv is he knew where they had gone.

The two rogues met back beside the fire. Isolde shook her head that Leanne wasn't in her tent and Aliza said that Warriv hadn't known where they had gone. The two sat down by the fire and wondered where they could have gone. They both jumped when Avian stepped out of the shadows nearby.

Avian was prepared for battle with dual wrist-blades and a small shield hanging from her pack, "you two are coming with me." She waved away Aliza's objections; "I have already been given permission from Kashya. You two are going with me while a track those two."

The two rogues weren't even given a chance to grab their packs before Avian ushered them out the gates and onto the many paths. Aliza just knew this wasn't going to be a good day for her and Isolde.

----------

You know in hindsight I thought it was odd that the two rogues where scared of Avian but it seams fitting. After all wouldn't you be afraid of a clan of people who hunt and kill for a living and do it so well that often the target's body isn't even found.

I did mean for Avian to be afraid of the necro, who I can't think of a good name for.

I was hoping to go into another part of the story before closing this chapter but if I did it would take far to long before I posted it. So I'm sorry this one isn't as interesting as the first two, I promise the next one will be better.

REVIEW! If you don't Review I will fall dead of sorrow and grief.


	4. FH chapter 4

Hello again fans of evil stomping slightly odd heroes. I'm back with another chapter of forgotten heroes.

Somehow Aliza and Isolde became a key part of the story. I honestly didn't mean to keep them around but now somehow this is their story with guest appearances from the heroes. Odd, very odd…

I don't own any rights to Diablo or Diablo2 or hellfire or LOD or any thing else I'm forgetting to list. The idea for this story is my own.

Leanne is my own char, don't try to steal her or she will skin you alive. Malcolm is my own char, try to steal him and he will feed you your own liver, in a light lemon sauce. Don't mess with Avian she likes to poison people. Aliza and Isolde are a package deal you can barrow them but you have to use them both together.

* * *

The forgotten heroes.

C) 4

Avian set a hard pace for the Rogues, they where long past the moors and cold plains into the rocky landscape before the first of the towering mountains. The stony field was over full with demons and beasts each stronger than the Rogues feared. The Assassin killed anything they came across, warning the Rogues to save their arrows for the underground passage and the dark woods beyond. She tore into the monsters and undead with blades in unbelievable moves or slipped into shadows only to reappear hurling spinning blades or to stab with a green tinted dagger that disappeared as quickly as it came.

The sun fell under the horizon as the Rogues stumbled in the doors of a small cabin. Avian was already stoking a fire on the hearth, the long path from the encampment didn't seam to have tired her at all despite only short pauses at wells and forks in the path. A small vial went back into her belt before Aliza could see what it was. The Assassin took dried beef from her pack and tossed it to them before falling onto the one crude dusty bed.

This left the two of them to take turns sleeping on the floor and watching for monsters. Aliza had the first watch while Isolde curled up beside the fire. She found herself looking at her friend more than the door. Isolde was never much for talking but ever sense the fall of the monastery she never uttered a word.

Isolde was down in the depths of the jail when the first wave of corruption washed through. She was the only one in a room of Rogues that escaped that level, everyone else fell trying to run from their sisters. Much the same thing happened throughout the monastery and now Isolde was the last of her generation. (Rogues in my perception treat the monastery as a school/chapel and a giant extended family)

Aliza still had most of her near sisters (see bottom of page) but she had always been more comfortable around the younger sisters. Isolde was perhaps the youngest sister alive unless some were hiding off in the countryside or at another encampment. So Aliza kept Isolde near her hoping to keep her safe, and making herself feel more comfortable.

Aliza felt her eyes drop and shook herself awake again, "it too silent out there." She went over to the doorway and looked out into the night. The sky above the world was thick with heavy clouds that blocked the moon and stars. Her eyes scanned out into the darkness around the cabin, using her training and the blessing of the sightless eye to see deeper than the faint light behind her would allow.

Out in the dark she couldn't see anything except grass swaying in the growing wind. She turned and went back to the hearth to wait her turn asleep. Stirring the low fire she wondered if whoever had lived here had made it somewhere safe, if anywhere was safe that is.

She gave a start and leapt to her feet when lightning began to crackle outside. She had fallen asleep and now the cloud where beginning to lighten with the morning sun. The Assassin was gone and Islode was pulling herself up and stringing her bow. Aliza griped her own and picked up her extra quiver before ducking out the door with Islode behind her.

They stepped out to find a sea of short feral demons, Fallen and their blue cousins Carvers were trying to swarm over the house. The only things slowing them down where strange bundles of twigs and wires that flung off small crawling balls of lightning. But even as they watched several twig bundles caught fire and fell apart. Those few demons that had died began to get back to their feet after a coppery light dissolved their wounds and made them scream as if dieing again in extreme pain.

Aliza was already releasing her fifth arrow before she could blink again, beside her Isolde was sending freezing arrows into the churning masses that still came onward. The demon slowed only to let their dead climb back to their feet, those that Isolde shot fell to the ground and shattered, leaving nothing to get back up.

And then the demons where on them, clawing and hacking and chewing on exposed flesh. The Rogues fought back as they could, with stabbing belt knifes and bows as clubs. Aliza felt herself pulled down into the mass of demon flesh and screamed in rage. This wasn't how she was meant to die; she was going to die an old Fletching Mother who could still draw her longbow and hit a target six hundred paces off.

Then she felt a grip on her arm, she lashed out trying to stab with her belt knife but found that she had lost it in one of the demons thick skulls. And then she was free of the demons, sitting against the wall of the small cabin. She could only stare as Avian fought, keeping the demons away from Aliza.

Aliza looked to her side for Isolde but she wasn't there, her head whipped to the other side and still there was no Isolde. She jumped to her feet and griped her bow, not caring that it was cracked, and began firing into the churning mass before her.

Suddenly the arrow in her hand burst into flames but she didn't care as she drew it back and fired. The fiery arrow left a smoky trail behind it as it went past Avian's head to hit the wall of demons kept back by her blooded blades. The arrow sank deep into the heartless chest of a carver and exploded.

Flesh and gore flew every direction as the carver and several near it were shredded by fire and smoke. And there in the brief gap Aliza saw Isolde, she was lying prone on the ground between five twisted monsters with crude mockeries of religious garb. Aliza found herself firing another flaming arrow, and another, and another.

Everywhere around her demons disappeared, leaving behind a scene of bloody carnage. Aliza reached for another arrow and found them gone, her quiver empty as was her extra quiver. She griped her cracked bow and charged towards the fleeing demons, only to stumble to her knees as her injuries caught up to her.

She was lying there in the black blood of the demon she had slain when a hand turned her over and thrust a large red bottle between her teeth. She gagged on the horrendous taste and tried spitting it out but the hand was over her mouth and rubbing her throat as she was forced to swallow.

She could feel the worst of her wounds begin to close, filling her with a tingling itch she found pleasant. Finally the hand came away and she sat up looking at her torn armor and more small wounds than she had ever seen. She turned towards her savior, expecting another sister or even a merchant guard only to find Avian.

Avian turned and glided away with the stalking sweep that Aliza found disturbing for the mixed images it put in her mind. When she saw what Avian was heading towards she got back on her protesting feet and wobbly knees and made her way over beside her.

Aliza was forcing another potion down Isolde's throat. Aliza hoped it was enough to heal the worst wounds. Large chunks of flesh were missing from her legs and a ragged hole was torn under her breast and large burns covered her face and sides.

Watching the wounds begin to heal and close so rapidly was very disturbing when this close. First the hole under her breast twisted closed, pushing up flecks of dirt and a chunk of wood, then her legs fleshed out filling in the missing muscles and covering the glint of wet bone.

Aliza watched as several larger cuts and gashes began to close and fade to dark bruises. Isolde was still covered in burns when the healing stopped and beside her Avian swore a string of words that Aliza blushed at even when not understanding most of them. Avian began digging in her pack searching for another potion, finding nothing but small white vials and bark blue potions.

She cursed again and began walking around the gruesome battleground, hunting like a stalking mountain lion. She moved fast and steadily but everything she found of interest was tossed aside or disappeared into her pack. Aliza stayed with her sister, cradling her brunt face in her arms.

Finally Avian came back with several red bottles, each one much smaller than the ones she had used before. After the last bottle was empty Isolde's burns had faded down to a dark pink scar that ran all across her back and sides and one long warped scar crossing her cheek, more potions would be needed to remove the scars before the healing settled into the flesh.

Aliza carried Isolde back to the cabin herself while Avian went back to looting the plies of charred flesh. Aliza cleaned the blood from Isolde and herself before tucking herself into the bed beside Isolde. Her last thought before sleep was that Avian wasn't so bad but she could sleep on the floor for now.

* * *

Three days later the three women where ready to move out. They had stayed in the cabin while recuperating but the stench of rot was growing too much and the scavengers where growing bolder.

Aliza strung her new bow with an ease that still surprised her for a long bow. Isolde's bow was always strung, simply because the string would never move except to pull an arrow. While Aliza's longbow was as plain as any bow, except for the slight shiver she felt when drawing an arrow, Isolde's was a most peculiar short bow that looked made from a long carved gold green rib or horn.

Avian was still as neutrally hostile as ever but she wasn't as demeaning of the Rogues now. For a whole day after the battle she had gone out hunting for healing potions. But with every trip back the small potions she had found made less and less effect on Isolde's burns. Aliza was sure that Avian avoided looking at the burn scar running across Isolde's cheek, she just didn't know why.

Aliza picked up her four quivers, she strapped two to her waist and the others went into her pack. The bows and a mountain of arrows had been found by Avian to replace those they had lost. Most the arrows where crude things and useless for hitting anything smaller than a mountain but several could be used acutely enough. Much of the night before was spent checking arrows and sorting loot. Avian clamed first rights from anything but there was more than enough to satisfy the Rogues. Most of it would be given to the encampment but a few gems and coins would be theirs to keep.

Outside the cabin Aliza's eyes went to the rotting demon skull sitting among the branches of a nearby tree. It was half burnt from inside and had short pointing horns but her eyes saw only the broken shaft of wood thrust into an eye-socket and out the back of the skull. That was how Isolde had killed the leader of the demons, by ramming part of her broken bow into its evil face.

That was also how she had been burnt. The demon was Bishibosh, an evil shaman that raised the dead corpses of its minions to continue fighting. When defeated it's body burst into black flames born of its evil nature and dark sins. The fire had burnt Isolde and left her nearly dead but Isolde wasn't the least bit upset.

Isolde was the same as ever not caring about nearly dieing or the loss of her fair face. Scars earned in battle were a minor honor among the sisters but a fair face was preserved for the sake of hiring. Often enough Rogues were only hired as a pretty face, but only by those who didn't know better. But still the sisterhood liked using a pretty face to change perceptions among idiotic men of other lands. The odds of Isolde being hired out to merchant going to other countries had fallen greatly.

Aliza fallowed along behind Avian and Isolde was behind her as they traveled down the hard dirt path. Up ahead Aliza could see the towering cliffs that could only be passed by an ancient cavern running down deep into the earth. There would be demons and monsters and other foul things laying in wait, she found herself grinning and saw glancing back so was Isolde. They had begun to like these adventures, even with the frequent threat of doom looming over their heads.

* * *

That's the end of chapter four. Its not very long but I need to make some ideas up for the passageway before I get to it.

It is very odd that Aliza and Isolde have become the center of the story. They had been meant as a plot device that would disappear after the first chapter but here they are pulling the story in a slightly different direction then I first planed.

I have a name for the necro. Sorry Karlminion but don't worry I did take your names, Guildain and Faldain. I even know what characters I'm attaching them to. But you have to wait until they appear in the story.

For some reason I can't get the chapters above five pages… I don't want to force it but I may have to if it doesn't change soon.

(Near sister- same generation or the same age and in the same classes of study under a fletching mother. Fletching mother- an older Rouge that teaches and looks after a group of younger Rogues. There can be upwards of a hundred Rogues in a generation. And every generation is divided into many groups of near sisters. Anywhere between 10 and 30 near-sisters can be under a Fletching mother.)

Later


	5. FH chapter 5

Hello again fans of evil stomping slightly odd heroes. I'm back with another chapter of forgotten heroes.

I'm talking too much. Go Read!

I don't own any rights to Diablo or Diablo2 or hellfire or LOD or any thing else I'm forgetting to list. The idea for this story is my own.

Leanne is my own char, don't try to steal her or she will skin you alive. Malcolm is my own char, try to steal him and he will feed you your own liver, in a light lemon sauce. Don't mess with Avian she likes to poison people. Aliza and Isolde are a package deal you can barrow them but you have to use them both together.

* * *

The forgotten heroes.

C) 5

Aliza shuddered as she tore her bloody dirk free of the skull it was plunged into. She wasn't shuddering at the spray of blood and gore but at the taint on her hands by using another weapion other than a bow. These deep caves held too many hanging stalagmites and narrow turns that made the two Rogues bows useless at most times.

Avian had given them a handful of dirks and daggers, saying they weren't up to her quality, to use to protect themselves. And they had had to protect themselves, from monsters very strong but not as strong as they had feared. Avian was nothing but a shade of movement in the darkness that Aliza knew they were allowed to see.

Isolde tugged on Aliza's braid, making her look at her as she held up eight fingers. Aliza blinked at the number, "we have been down here eight hours?" Isolde had begun counting as they entered the caverns, a way to keep time until they once again had the sun or stars to tell the time.

"Closer to ten actually." Avian came back around a corner, coming back to the Rogues from scouting the tunnels ahead. "These tunnels have been changed by something. Something has been digging new paths and filling others. We have spent hours traveling winding tunnels when we should already be out. And it appears that there is a way farther down up ahead."

Avian turned and disappeared again and the Rogues scurried to fallow. Ever since the fight at the cabin Avian had become friendlier, or not as frosty, with them. Aliza was still making up random theories as to why Avian kept flinching at the burn across Isolde's face. Her strongest was that Avian had some burn scars herself somewhere under that dark armor.

Sure enough just up ahead was a steep stone chute that plunged deeper into the earth. Avian didn't hesitate to jump in, scraping her armor on the sharp stone edges. Avian took Isolde's bow and pushed her ahead before lowering the bows until they where pulled down and then started to lower her body carefully.

Her feet lost their footing as she hung by her hands, before she could drop a frozen chill shot up her leg. She fell as her numb hands slipped dropping a few feet and landing on the rough stone below. She grasped her leg and found an ice-cold shaft of a crossbow bolt.

She grasped it hard and pulled it free, feeling the frozen flesh grind against the sharpened barbs under the razor sharp head. Finally free of the cold shaft she could feel warmth returning to her body. She managed to get to her feet and look around for the first time.

She was sitting behind a strange pile of stones and she could see Isolde across from her behind a natural quartz pillar. She gasped as she saw Avian sitting beside Isolde. Avian had a pair of those freezing bolts in her back and she was almost blue with the chill sweeping her body.

Isolde leaned away from the pillar long enough to let lose an arrow coated in frost. Aliza fallowed its flight and saw it strike a corrupt sister as she came into her sight. The icy magic in Isolde's arrows didn't even frost the skin around the shaft jutting from the breast of the corrupt woman. The arrow itself made the abomination turn and flee but caused less harm than it should have.

Aliza had to drop behind the pile of stones again as another corrupt Rogue came forward firing from a small crossbow that seamed always loaded. The monstrous woman seamed to be covered in sheets of cracked ice that Isolde's frosted shafts glanced away from.

The ice Rogue kept advancing until Avian tried to toss a small orb, only for Isolde take it from her slowed hand and toss it. The orb smashed in flames a few inches away from her sending her jumping back as her ice began to melt.

Into the dark she retreated and none came again for the time. "Join me amongst the icy darkness. I will have the underworld held in my cold hands and you will be beside me, or dead. I am ColdCrow, and none enter my realm and escape."

Aliza caught her bow as Isolde tossed it to her; she griped the shaft and bracing it against her foot bent it until she could run the string over the other end. Before she even had it placed the string snapped, the bow shaft nearly shattering her ankle as it snapped strait again. She cursed and dug in her belt for another string, only to find her last one had lost its 'snap' from the cold.

She tore her pack open looking for another but couldn't find any anywhere. She cursed the fallen demons for taking her belt pouch in her last large battle. She looked to Isolde and found that she had put aside her bow and was tossing whatever Avian handed her. Lightning and fire and flashing blades that floated in the air, they all kept the corrupted rogues and shorter green skinned demons with huge mouths and small twisted horns. But none of the monsters or demons fell because Isolde's aim with the strange weapons was very poor, at least poor compared to the lancing grace of her bow.

Without even a glance up she sprang from the floor and rolled towards her friends, hearing crackling balls of lightning passing over her and bolts shattering against the ground behind her. She came up beside Avian and opened Isolde's pack searching for a bowstring. Finding one frayed and worn she had no other choose but to use it, stringing her bow with practiced ease she stood and drew an arrow.

She felt the shiver again and saw a spark of light on the arrowhead even before she released it. It flew into the shadow, piercing the arm of a corrupt Rogue. The Rogue shook as lightning crawled beneath her skin in eerie white glowing spots. Another arrow coated in small flames and dancing with lightning pierced the corrupt Rogues heart, releasing her from her entrapment.

Aliza pulled back another arrow and tried to focus her thoughts on the great fireball she had caused before but all she could achieve was a thick coating of flames that refused to eat the arrow shaft. She released her arrow as a twisted monster came forward, the arrow sinking deep in its misshaped eye.

Aliza ducked back again as ColdCrow came forward firing bolts faster than she could possibly load them. The bolts sent stone flying and covered the quartz pillar in frost. Aliza could hear the advancing clawed feet of the demons, and all the while those bolts wedged themselves deeper into the pillar. Avian groaned and she pulled on one of the shafts protruding from her back. Aliza kneeled beside her and griped the shaft, feeling the cold and tugging at the shaft only to find it trapped between Avain's ribs.

Aliza winced but didn't have time for comforting; she pulled the leather glove from her hand and forced it into Avain's mouth. Then griping the shaft she twisted it until the head slipped back between the ribs and out of her back. She griped the other and found it was only pinned under the edge of Avain's armor leaving a jagged gash across her shoulder. She pulled it free and fumbled for a potion at her belt, removing the glove from Avian's mouth and forcing the vile concoction down her throat.

Before Aliza could turn she felt an icy grip lift her from her feet and turn her around. She griped the arm holding her neck and stared into the glowing blue eyes of ColdCrow. Isolde hung limply in her other hand with one of those icy bolts stuck in her side. "You contend my rule. You will die slowly as your blood turns to ice", and the air around them continued to grow colder showing the truth to ColdCrow's words.

In a spray of frozen flesh a long blade burst from ColdCrow's chest, stopping only inches from skewering Aliza as well. ColdCrow screamed before her sprit tore from her body in a blinding blast of ice that shot in every direction. Aliza found herself griping a chain mail glove and staring around at a frozen cave. Everything was frozen, the bodies of the corrupt Rogues and other demons and the still ice statues of a few monsters on the edge of her night vision.

She dropped the glove and reached for the blue form of Isolde, only to shudder as the cold hit her. She dropped to her knees and shivered uncontrollably, she saw the glove as it sat in a growing puddle of melting blood. She picked it up and pulled it on her ungloved hand and like it was gone she no longer felt the ice.

She scurried to her sister and found that she was alive and only slightly hurt by the arrow stuck in her intestines. She pulled the shaft free and tried to pour a potion down Isolde's throat only for it to freeze on her tongue. She ripped the glove from her hand and pulled it on over Isolde's own leather gloves, the potion thawed and flowed down her throat as the blue tint faded from her skin.

Aliza stumbled over to Avian shivering from the cold and the fading rush of battle. She dropped to her side and cheeked for more wounds but found nothing concerning. The cold was severely affecting the assassin and would kill her if she couldn't be warmed up. Aliza looked around for wood or anything that could burn and her eyes saw the crossbow that ColdCrow had used.

Shivering her way over to it on her hands and knees she griped it and began back, finding that a demon had thawed and was coming towards her. Almost without thought she raised the crossbow and pulled the trigger, a freezing bolt flew from it even when it hadn't been loaded with it. The demon shattered and its frozen flesh scattered across the ground.

Pulling herself back to her feet Aliza stumbled back towards Avian, finding the assassin was growing worse as her heart slowed. She looked around for a pack and the flint and tinder inside, only to find them all frozen to the cave floor. She dropped the crossbow with a clatter and griped Avian under her arms, dragging her over against Isolde and hugging them both hoping their shared warmth would save the assassin.

A while latter she had to stand as she heard the thump of heavy clawed feet. Finding her bow frozen to the ground like everything else she looked around, finding only the crossbow. Lifting it she waited until the twisted demon wandered into view, the first bolt struck it low in the body and the second pierced the frozen chest sending a spray of frozen blood out its hunched back along with the bolt.

She stumbled a few feet ahead to check for other monster but remembered her helpless friends and turned back. Her foot hit something and she looked down to see another chain glove, she fell down and pulled it on her hand instantly. She sighed as she felt the warmth returning along with the sting of frostbite. She made her way back to Avian and Isolde, griping the crossbow hard.

She got back to them and found the Avian was beginning to turn blue again. She pulled the glove from her hand and put it on the assassin's hand. The cold returned like a hammer and she had to focus on something else just to keep from falling over. "At least I can't feel the beginning of frostbite."

She pulled her friends over against the wall and propped them against her sides, hoping their body heat could keep her awake to fight off any monsters that might come along. She heard a clatter as something hit the cave floor and struggled to open her eyes, she didn't see any monsters, only her crossbow lying on the ground. As she closed her eyes she spoke to herself, "what monster wouldn't want an enchanted crossbow?"

* * *

Aliza awoke feeling warm and rested. She opened her eyes and saw nothing, feeling rounder her she felt cured furs and blankets. Pulling them down she sat up and stretched. "Your awake finally. Conversation was a bit difficult without you around." Avian pressed a wooden bowl into her hands and a cup of steaming tea.

Aliza started eating, not caring where the assassin had found decent food and good tea. She felt the fire at her side but didn't look at anything until her bowl was empty. Then she wrapped her hands around her mug and breathed deep the aroma of dark strong tea. Looking across the fire she found Avian and Isolde sitting there watching her with concerned looks.

Aliza gave a start as everything was suddenly cast in silvery light. She looked up in time to see the moon disappear behind clouds again. They where back outside and all around them were trees closely packed against the edge of the small clearing. "How long was I out?"

Isolde practically jumped over the fire and hugged Aliza in a crushing grip. "You have been asleep for a few hours. During witch I awoke to find you nearly dead and a group of zombies shuffling towards us. One of them touched you before I could kill it."

Prying Isolde's crushing grip from her body she took a needed breath before answering. "What dose it matter if it touched me. I'm alive and unharmed and so are you two."

Avian picked up a warped wrist blade that was at her feet and spent long moments studding it before answering. "If you are near death and an undead embraces you while your sprit leaves the mortal realm your body will become its own. You would become a living undead. So we cared you out here and watched you so that you wouldn't turn. You haven't or you wouldn't know who we are."

Aliza shuddered and couldn't stop herself as the thought of being a walking terror filled her mind. Isolde pushed her back under the blankets and furs and Aliza let herself be, wanting to sleep until the sun shone down on her and warmed her heart from the chilling of fear.

* * *

Aliza awoke again in a smothering darkness reaching out her hands struck rough timbers nailed crudely together. She panicked and started twisting around searching for someway out only to find she was trapped in a small wooden box that tore at her thin garments and skin with protruding nails and splinters.

She pounded on the wood screaming in terror, "I'm not dead! Help! I'm bared alive!" she could hear her breathing grow labored and her lungs burned for air. She lashed out with her fists, punching through the rough planks and spilling black earth down on her.

Squirming up through the ground like a worm she felt other things brush against her, slimy rotting things. Finally after an age of darkness and burning for air she burst from the earth. The sky was hid behind clouds and a dark mist clung to everything, behind her stood a short stone marker. She couldn't help but read it, 'Our Sister of the Sightless Eye, Aliza. She fell protecting her sister and sister-friend (see bottom) from an icy demoness. Long may her memory fly like her arrows.'

She began to cry, they had given her more honor than she deserved. She turned around and begin to cry, never hearing the moans coming from the fog around her. Thin slimy arms wrapped around her from behind, squeezing off her cry of horror. Another pair of arms found her shoulders and squeezed until she felt a bony finger pierce her skin. And a glowing zombie came forward, its arms spread wide and the remnants of its face curled up in a smile while maggots fell from its one empty eye.

* * *

Aliza awoke gasp covered in sweat. She was beside the fire and under her blankets; she shuddered at the awful nightmare even as it faded from her mind. She looked at the others on the other side of the fire, Avian and Isolde still asleep and trusting to the assassin's traps for warning of attack.

The last of the nightmare faded from Aliza leaving her terrified of a dream and of still being afraid now that it was over and she couldn't even remember it. She rolled over and drew the blankets over her head, hoping that the sun would come up bright and unblocked tomorrow. As she fell asleep the thought came to her that she should ask Avian to be her sister-friend, not knowing where the thought came from but that it wasn't a bad idea.

* * *

Chapter 5 done. Thank you for reading, now review. REVIEW!

(Sister-friend: a symbol of sisterhood granted to women who are not of the sisterhood. Usually restrained to great archers but occasionally given to anyone who has saved the life of a rogue(s) frequently. The equivalent given to a man is Sisters-husband. Sister-Husband: the only way for a rogue to marry a man and still be a sister to the sightless eye. The man must have proven himself in battle beside the rogues and have saved the rogue in question repeatedly. Again usably restrained to great archers but other kinds of fighters have been known. In rogue marriages the woman is the dominant partner, and is allowed any means of enforcing her will on her husband in all matters except battle and accepting the marriage, although rejecting a marriage offer often ends in the mans death and/or disfigurement. A man married to a rogue suffers the same treatment as all other men but with a grudging respect given to him from the entire sisterhood.)

I talk too much so ill shut up now. And yes ColdCrow is found in the 'cave' in the game and welds a scimitar, but I changed her a bit to work in my story better.

Later


	6. FH chapter 6

Hello again fans of evil stomping slightly odd heroes. I'm back with another chapter of forgotten heroes.

Go Read!

I don't own any rights to Diablo or Diablo2 or hellfire or LOD or any thing else I'm forgetting to list. The idea for this story is my own.

Leanne is my own char, don't try to steal her or she will skin you alive. Malcolm is my own char, try to steal him and he will feed you your own liver, in a light lemon sauce. Don't mess with Avian she likes to poison people. Aliza and Isolde are a package deal you can barrow them but you have to use them both together. Try to take Payton against his will and he will give you a long painful death and then bring you back only to start over.

* * *

The Forgotten Heroes.

C) 6

Aliza was tired, she had woke twice again in the night with a terrible dream that faded moments after waking and now she had walked the length of the dark woods. She wondered if Avian was going to the monastery; fear that she was kept her from asking.

Isolde looked cheerful because the sun was out and they hadn't seen any monsters so far today except a few sickly quill rats. Isolde had gathered another hunters bow somewhere and was using it while her new short bow hung from her pack. Aliza kept her own longbow ready but had the icy crossbow hanging beside her quiver. It hindered her movement a little but the reassurance that she had a weapon always ready to fire overcame that.

Isolde had given her a funny look when she clamed the crossbow and named it QuickFrost. The bow was the only weapon for the sisters of the sightless eyes but there where exceptions. A belt knife or other small knife, short swords as a mark of rank and crossbows for the old or enfeeble who could no longer hold a bowstring long enough to aim properly.

Isolde had named her own short bow, writing its name in the dust of the road when Aliza mentioned it should have one, EverSting. A strange name but it fit well with it being always strung.

Avian had begun wearing her buckler because her one wrist blade had been ruined. She still carried the twisted weapon saying it could be reforged. The metal had taken a permanent chill from the death of ColdCrow and had to be kept wrapped in cloth so uncovered skin wouldn't peal off, stuck to the freezing metal. She also had taken the chain gloves, she gave no reason and neither Rogue cared. They both had noticed that the assassin was very vulnerable to cold, perhaps she came from a much warmer climate like along the coast of the Twin Seas.

Aliza yawned again as they passed another tree, and another and another and… she gave a start as Isolde tugged her braid, she had fallen asleep while walking. She blushed at this loss of face and turned her head, in time to see an arrow being fitted to the string of a bow.

She pushed Isolde aside and tackled Avian as the bowstring snapped, she felt a tug on her hair but had no time to wonder what it was as she drew a smoking arrow back while kneeling and fired. The tree the bowman was behind exploded in a massive pillar of flames and flying ash.

As the smoke cleared a little Aliza saw a few piles of bone behind the burning stump of the tree. Skeletons with bows, she hoped no of them had been her sisters. She looked around for others but the closely set trees hid everything a few feet from the road. Isolde was back on her feet with her plain hunters bow ready and Avian had vanished into the shadows under the trees.

After a few moments the shadows slid down away from a tree's own shadow, reviling a smirking Avian. "Those where the only enemies around but thanks to your fireball their will be more coming. Oh and I like your new hair tie."

Avian turned and started off down the road at a jog, forcing the Rogues to keep up or be left behind. "Isolde. What did she mean by that last part?" she looked at her shorter sister as she giggled. "What?"

Isolde reached over and tugged at Aliza's braid again, as she was increasingly doing to get her attention. Aliza reached back and felt her braid, and found a long arrow shaft ran right through her braid a few inches from her scalp. She felt along the shaft as Isolde giggled, the arrow was crude and tipped in stone but it wasn't horrible for a 'hair tie' as Avian had called it. She left it in place and focused on the trees, looking for more monsters and forgetting her tiredness for now.

* * *

Sometime after noon the clouds had come again and thunder shook the sky. Rain was coming and the three women had nowhere to escape it. They had left the dark woods a while back, chased by huge packs of blue carver demons. The demons refused to leave the forest after a few of their brethren shattered from icy arrows or flaming ones that carried a charge of electricity.

They now stood on the maintained road that traveled through the marsh leading to the toamo highland and the main gates of the monastery. They hadn't seen many monsters except for strange reptilian birds Avian called bloodhawks. They where walking along the road looking for some place to stop when they heard a commotion up ahead.

They ran off the road towards the raised voices and sounds of battle. Coming up over the rise onto a small hill they found a great many skeletons hurling bolts of lightning and fire into a small Blackstone ruin. Aliza knew this ruin; it was the foundation of the black tower centuries ago.

The tower had once been a watchtower where the sisterhood watched for enemies advancing towards the monastery. A quean's daughter had come to the sisterhood and rose through the ranks quickly. After becoming battle eagle she took the tower as her personal residence and took her loyalist sisters with her.

It isn't known what caused her to turn to evil but she had began to scour the countryside and sisterhood for virgins, claming that they would retrieve a special training only the pure could learn. It was discovered later what she had done as one of the half dead girls escaped and warned the high priestess of the battle eagles treachery.

The tower was laid under sedge for nearly a decade. At the end of witch the upper floors had been reduced to smoldering shells that soon fell to the weather. Thinking the battle over the sisterhood left the great tower as it was and began searching for a place to build a new watchtower that was never built. Over time the ruins and fallen walls became black and a feeling of dread came over anyone near it.

As they crept towards the skeletons a great shout rose from within the ruins and out came a furry mass of loathsome goatmen, being pushed back by the massive form of Malcolm. He held in his hands an over large meat cleaver stained with blood and in the other a large cresset bladed axe. Both should have been wielded in two hands but his massive hands and muscles easily griped the axes as they split the demons into peaces.

Aliza didn't even realize she had drawn an arrow until it struck a magic slinging skeleton. Beside her Isolde's own bowstring snapped as her icy arrow flew into another skeletal mage. Avian wasn't to be seen, at all. She had faded into the shadows and hadn't emerged again.

A pile of bones spun up from the ground where a skeletal mage had fallen, clinking against each other until each one snapped into place with another and shards of wood and bone formed a shield and mace in its hands. Aliza released her next arrow, seeing it strike deep into the shield and igniting it.

The skeleton turned and charged into the fray but before Aliza could draw another arrow it attacked, not Malcolm but a goatman. She shifted her aim and knocked another skull from the shoulders of a skeleton.

Out of the ruins arrows and glowing spears began to fly, striking into the remaining monsters. The ground beside her began to roll and churn and she screamed in unknowable terror until a large pile of clay formed into the hulking shape of a man. And then another beside it, but much larger and actually having large peaces of stone protecting its body in places.

She didn't know why the ground breaking open from inside scared her so much but she had to forget it as a flock of bloodhawks swept down into the fight. She slung her bow over her shoulder and griped the handle of QuickFrost. Every bolt either killed the strange creatures or frozen them causing them to drop to the earth and shatter.

The golems had waded into the fight smashing down anything in their way until they stood beside Malcolm. Malcolm and the stony golem fought like old crusaders used to each other but the smaller clay golem took many hits and barely managed to strike anything with its slow fists. The last mage fell to the strange glowing spears and out of the ruins came Leanne and the necromancer from the encampment.

With a great howl Malcolm spilt the last goatman from horn to hoof. He stood there panting and sweating with a wild look in his eyes. The smaller clay golem took a step away and Malcolm lashed out with his silver axe, removing the lump of a head and causing the body to crumble to dust.

The necromancer slumped for a moment before squaring his slim shoulders and readying an insult. Leanne silenced him with a small hand smacking across his temple. She drew a small flute from her sleeve and played a few simple notes that sounded even more perfect and wonderful amongst the carnage around them all.

Malcolm relaxed visibly and shook his head; he looked around again with that grin of his. "Why hello my little friends. What takes you so far out by yourselves? It wasn't to find us I hope. Leanne and Payton here wanted to rid this tower of some dark witch of some kind." He used the butt of his axe to scratch behind his ear, smearing blood and gore across the side of his face but not noticing.

"Actually it was an ancient Rogue long corrupted by her own desires. She called herself simply 'the countess'" Leanne slipped the flute back up her sleeve and looked at a golden ring with a triangular red stone on her finger. She twitched her fingers in some strange gesture and the stony golem came over to her side. She patted it on the arm once and then it began to fall apart.

"Malcolm. Give me a hand over here." Payton had a very nice voice actually but his appearance was even more disturbing with that light tenor. He had disappeared back inside the ruins and was lifting something.

Malcolm went in and grasped something before walking back out, carrying a huge chest on each shoulder and his pack of weapons on his back. Payton came out behind him carrying a bulging sack and a foul smelling bundle.

"Leanne!" Malcolm had dropped the chests, almost crushing Payton, and griping a giant dual-bladed axe in both hands. "Release her assassin." Aliza turned and found the Avian had a hold of Leanne and was holding her green glowing dagger over her chest.

"What are you doing? She is no minion of evil!" Aliza blinked at the words. She was going to say them but someone had said them first, Isolde. Isolde had drawn back an arrow and had it pointed at Avian's head. "Let her go."

"Why hello little sister. I hope this isn't to get back at me. After all I only just meet Leanne and it would only be a minor loss of acquaintance. However it would allow me to study revival again." Malcolm growled again, both at Avian and Payton.

"Avian is your sister?" Aliza snapped her teeth shut after the words had escaped her mouth. This wasn't a fun adventure anymore, not when allies attacked allies. She just wanted to sleep for a while undisturbed and awake in a warm bed. She yawned with a popping jaw; she received several looks of incredulity at witch she could only smile.

Avian didn't move a muscle and her hands held steady, the dagger posed to plunge deep into Leanne's heart. "He was my brother, long ago before he became a dark priest. Now he is just another necromancer waiting for the blade in his back." She shifted her hands slightly, "this is no matter of revenge Necromancer. It is work. I was paid to find a woman who had escaped Tristram and learn if she knew any dark spells and if so learn how. After I know she dose I take her head back for my reward."

Everyone stood where they were, Malcolm growling under his breath and Leanne acted as if this was normal. Payton was rolling a small skull around his fingers, grinning at everyone in a most sickening fashion. Avian was posed for flight and battle while Isolde was ready to end Avian's existence. Aliza just wanted to sort this out and sleep.

* * *

Cliffhanger! Sorry but at least I don't do them frequently.

So you saw Leanne's golem, she has other spells to but they show up later. She was wearing the Bleeder, a useful ring if used properly.

Malcolm got to use some more of his weapons. The Butcher's Cleaver, Stonecleaver, and Hellslayer. If no one had remembered it I did say he was of the wolf clan, AXES RULE! And he still has more…

I'm still talking too much.

Later


	7. FH chapter 7

Hello again fans of evil stomping slightly odd heroes. I'm back with another chapter of forgotten heroes.

Go Read!

I don't own any rights to Diablo or Diablo2 or hellfire or LOD or any thing else I'm forgetting to list. The idea for this story is my own.

Leanne is my own char, don't try to steal her or she will skin you alive. Malcolm is my own char, try to steal him and he will feed you your own liver, in a light lemon sauce. Don't mess with Avian she likes to poison people. Aliza and Isolde are a package deal you can barrow them but you have to use them both together. Try to take Payton against his will and he will give you a long painful death and then bring you back only to start over. Dusan is really just a spirit in a skull that only Payton can hear so it would be stupid to take a skull that doesn't do anything.

I wasn't planning the Payton perspective for the second half, it kind of attacked me out of an old idea I had for a peace of original work so I'm sorry if the second half is a bit off, I hadn't meant for more than one perspective in this fic. Good news is that it shouldn't happen again.

* * *

The Forgotten Heroes.

C) 7

"Come now sister." Payton was still rolling the small skull around his fingers even as he spoke to his sister. "I might not know much about your work but surely placing a dagger at the targets neck isn't the best way to discover weather she has dangerous magic's. For many reasons."

His sister, Avian, gritted her teeth and didn't speak as she kept her eyes moving between everyone around her. Aliza yawned again, still feeling the lack of sleep despite the tension in the air. After stifling another as best she could she decided to try resolving this as best she could see. "Why not ask Leanne if she knows forbidden magic? I thought assassins were trained in hearing truth from fiction."

Avian tensed, bringing the poison dagger closer to Leanne's neck for a moment before relaxing and releasing her. "Alright Aliza, I will take your advice if only because I wish not to be hewn down like a tree." She turned her attention to a still calm Leanne, "do you posses magic's that turn against all convents wrought between the many sorceries guilds?"

Leanne stood there and stared Avian in the eye for a long while before raising a hand to straiten hair that hadn't been lose. "Answer me!" Avian slipped her hand around behind her back and drew her shield, expecting a fight very shortly.

"You wish an answer to a question I don't understand. I know many spells that I have learned in my travels but I have know not what magic is turned against by the mage clans." Aliza couldn't understand how Leanne could be so calm facing an assassin out for her head.

"Imposable." Payton gave a single mocking note of laughter in disbelief. "For the magical prowess I have seen in the dungeons below my very feet could only be done by someone of a high class in a powerful clan. Might as well claim to have fought Diablo himself."

Payton never saw the mighty fist of Malcolm before the backhand blow sent the frail man flying across the ground. "Mention the demon again and I will not hold my hand." Malcolm was quivering with rage and his eyes looked on the verge of lousing control. Payton managed to stumble back to his feet holding his abused face while chunks of broken bone fell from his armor, revealing the hardened leather below.

"That name has caused us much pain and grief and while my life is but a trail of emotional harshness Malcolm is much more revealed in his expression of grief. The tale I of my magic is long and starts in my youth, the story is not finished and will not be until I am gone from this world. Already my tale would take a rising of a new moon to finish in short, life has been cruel to me in many things. But now is not the time for stories of great lengths we must be gone before the sent of death attracts more dark creatures." Leanne turned and began walking away, not appearing to fear the assassin at her back.

Malcolm picked up his dropped weapons and fallowed the diminutive woman with a last glare at Avian. Payton stopped massaging his cheek long enough to cross his arms over his chest and almost sing a sinuous incantation. Bone formed from the very air around him and began to adhere to his armor where the older bone had been destroyed. After his armor was repaired he fallowed Avian as she walked silently behind Malcolm's great back, pausing only long enough to grab the sack he had brought from the ruins of the black tower.

Aliza looked at Isolde, hiding another yawn behind her hand, and shrugged before fallowing after the strange collection of people. Aliza hung Quick Frost at her belt again and took her longbow from her back, stringing it before starting off with Isolde. They brought up the rear of the column, watching for rear and side attacks.

Aliza didn't know where Leanne was leading them all; she had set off across the marsh neither towards the monastery or the long road backs to the encampment. All she could see in the distance was the great rocky hills and cliffs that made the underground path necessary. Only the nimblest and most surefooted climber could scale those towering hills and cliffs without falling to their doom.

Finally Leanne stopped, right at the bottom of the wide notch where a hard cliff face meet a smooth but cracked hillside that was nearly as steep as the cliff face. "And what are we doing here? I certainly hope there was a point to this long trek." Payton had continued to fall behind until he was the rear guard; currently he had given up walking and was resting comfortably in the arms of his newest clay golem while reading a dusty wood bound tome.

"As I once told my little friends Aliza and Isolde, I don't need a pass to cross mountains." Malcolm had a very strange way of speaking when not in a battle, it was as if he was well learned rather than the savage's rumors and legends spoke of. In battle he was a ball of destructive fury that could only be called savage.

"Really? Do the distant men of the north know how to sprout wings and fly?" Payton's sharp tongue rasped on Aliza's already fraying patience. If he didn't start to speak civilly she might decide to remove it from his head.

"The men of the north have never needed wings to fly." Malcolm griped the front of Payton's armor, the bones cracking under his fingers, while holding the iron bound chest in his other. Without a chance for anyone to say anything else, or even for the surprised necromancer to protest, he squatted down low and pushed off from the earth in a flying mass of rippling muscles.

Aliza's jaw dropped even as her head tilted back to watch the giant man soar upward. Her jaw snapped shut again and she took a step back as his flight slowed, only for him to press his foot against a crevice in the stone and pushing him farther upward. With every push he rose less and less until it was as if he was running up the stone.

As he disappeared over the top she turned her head back to the other around her, only to find that Leanne had drawn her two daggers. Aliza whipped around, looking for the danger, but turned back as she heard the ear piercing sound of cutting stone. Leanne worked up the cliff hand over hand, sinking her enchanted daggers into the stone for purchase as her feet steadied her against to stone.

Avian fallowed just behind Leanne, using small hooks on her palms to cling as if crawling like a black insect. Aliza looked back up the top as she heard a shout from Malcolm. "Do my small friends need a hand up the hill?"

Aliza was about to say yes when Isolde silenced her with a hand on her arm and a shake of her head. Malcolm must have seen this as well, "don't be long then. This might be a shorter route but the trip is still long."

Malcolm gave Leanne a hand over the top while leaving Avian to fend for herself. This left Aliza and Isolde at the bottom themselves with a clay golem that kept running into the rock wall. "And how are we fallowing them over?"

Isolde walked back from the cliff and held up her hunters bow, and pointed at QuickFrost on Aliza's belt. She then drew an arrow back and fired at the cliff wall, drawing another and another before the first sank into the gashes made by Leanne's daggers. The frosty arrow lodging tight as she continued to fire, soon every gash had two arrows wedged deep in them.

Aliza looped her still strung longbow over her shoulder and drew the chilly crossbow from her belt, using it to put a shorter but stronger bolt between the arrows. As the last one sank into place Isolde ran at the wall. Leaping high she stepped off every other step, each one she stepped on shattering from cold or falling free even as her foot left it.

Aliza waited until she was a few heights above before fallowing, hoping that this insane idea worked. With all her senses focused on the next step, she failed to see the fire bolt before it was to close to avoid. If she had anyway of avoiding it in the first place that is.

The shot of magical flames struck her high in the shoulder, not harming her but sending her off balance and making her miss her next step. She began to fall, grasping at the step that her foot missed she stopped her fall long enough to look up into the horrified eyes of Isolde before the improvised step tore free.

The world slowed down as Islode got farther away. Blots of fire and shafts of arrows smashed against the cliff between them. Isolde lunged out as if trying to reach her but Malcolm appeared and grasped her holding her to his chest and blocking her view. He looked at her as she fell and blinked, something glinting in the air as it started to fall after her.

Time came rushing back to her as they turned and disappeared, the air pulled at her and she heard bolts of magic sizzling in the air around her. "Damn" even as her mouth formed the word there was a great crackling and she hit with a shuddering crunch and her world disappeared.

* * *

Isolde didn't even react as Malcolm leapt for the other side of the ridge, falling the vast distance and landing with a bone-rattling jolt. He put her on her feet but they crumpled under her, tears flowing down her checks as she stared at nothing.

"They got my golem. Oh well I can try making the next stronger." Payton didn't react to the glares directed at him. He knew fully well that Aliza had fallen, but he knew something that he wouldn't tell them. "Well lets get going on shall we."

He felt cold steel as it traced along his neck, outlining this spine and jugglers. "Come now sister. I care not of death unless it is my own; as I am sure you have learned the same way in your profession. It is best to get to forget the grip of death while important things need doing."

"I wouldn't taunt you with a blade necromancer, you would be a wandering sprit wondering what had happened to your body." Payton rolled his eyes towards Avian's voice, finding her standing next to Malcolm as he rubbed the crying rogue's back.

"While morning the dead is often put aside by the constraints of time and events the loss of your closest loved one is not something that can be walked away from without some reaction. Not to react, even in one's heart, is to be no better than the mindless bones that serve you." Leanne pressed a bit harder, pealing a very fine layer of skin away from his neck. She continued to slowly peal skin away from his neck, slowly coming down through his flesh closer towards his lifeblood, while he pondered the situation and the amazingly painless sensations of his skin being removed.

The dagger was gone again as if his skin had simple fallen away on its own, leaving little between his blood and the air. Leanne walked around him and towards Isolde, cradling her in her arms and whispering to her as if the rogue was a scared child. Avian came towards her brother now, no weapon on hand but still as threatening as ever. She griped his shoulder, squeezing it until it felt as if his clavicle would shatter. "Listen here, _brother._" she put every ounce of her scorn and hated of him into her voice and still he maintained his calmest expression. "I deal in death while you defile it. But I show compassion and emotions when it was someone I know that perished before their time."

She glared into his eyes, her eyes so very much like his own but more different than even she thought. "If you can't at least be civil I will break my oath to our mother. Do you hear me _Brother_? I will go against my word if you don't hold your tongue."

She shoved him away with revulsion on her face as Leanne and Malcolm walked past leading a still sobbing Isolde between them. She fallowed them closely but it was clear that she was more concerned with her silent friend than with her possible target. That left Payton standing there, as they got farther away from him.

Finally he started walking after them with a frown on his face. He kept a good distance between them and himself, needing time to think. Under his breath he spoke to the small rodent skull in his hand, "what had I said wrong Dusan? I still can't understand why death would affect someone so much."

A glint of light shown in the recesses behind the skulls empty sockets. A voice touched Payton's thoughts, one that only he could hear. "_It is something that comes from being with someone so long that you can no longer remember what you had done without them. What would you do if I was destroyed?_"

Payton flicked the skull into the air, catching it again as it came down. "I would find another skull and cast the enchantment that bound you to it. It wouldn't be the fist time an unlucky fall or trip crushed your vessel."

The glint in the skull never changed but the voice sounded dizzy after its short flight. "_No I mean what would you do if my essence was destroyed or lost to you._"

Payton's steps faltered for a moment before his feet found its pace again. "I don't know."

The voice grunted, prompting Payton to losing his grip before the skull cracked. "_That is what the girl is suffering from. You should not mention her friends death again, it would be best if you stayed away from her altogether._"

They made camp just before the end of the valley spilled out over into the steep but less rocky hills below. Some time ago in the distant past, long before even the dawn of man, this pass hadn't existed. The range of mountains was long and solid and only hard routes up over the harshest ridges were possible. Some great upheaval happened, interestingly enough starting at where the monastery was now built, and an entire mountain fell and shattered.

Stone was tossed into the countries all around for hundreds of miles and several gaping rents in the earth had been formed. Some rents had filled with fire and molten stone but it cooled rapidly, while others held waters that chilled until last lakes of ice stood. The magic of power that caused this upheaval is unknown, only that it was a force of good.

Now ages later those rents and gaps in the mountain are still there, making valleys that stand-alone with no rivers amongst them. Soil came and live grew, fire cooled and ice melted creating hundreds of diffract vales amongst hard mountains. Over time man and nature torn openings between several of these valleys, making paths that often failed as the rock grew hard and men's strength and patience wore thin. The only pass to have been finished was that of the rogue monastery.

They where in one of the small vales that had been used by farmers for years as a place to build their farms and homes, it was a small vale and it had been abandoned long before the corruption started to plague the land around it. Payton kept to his own small fire away from the others, not trusting what he would say around them while they where morning.

Everyone's meal was simple and cold and bland considering that Malcolm had made it. Despite cold and tasteless it still filled Payton and returned his energy faster than even a potion could. Everyone sat in silence, not wanting to speak of Isolde's loss until she was ready to but not knowing how they would know she was ready.

Payton looked the rodent skull between his fingers and saw the spark inside. He focused his thoughts at it so the others wouldn't hear him. "_Why dose the lost affect them so much. If I lost you it would stay long in my thoughts and it would be a great disturbance until I found another like you._"

The spark in the skull that was Dusan flashed brighter once in agitation. "_Humans realize that every sprit is different and know that finding another even similar to that one lost is all but beyond their means. And you would never find another like me, I am the only one._"

Payton rolled the skull across his hand as he tried thinking out this confusing idea. He gave a start as someone poked his side; Isolde had come over and had sat down beside him. Her face was tight and streaked by tears still but her eyes were warm, if more than a little sad. Payton glanced at the others as they watched her in confusion; looking back at the rogue beside him he saw her nod.

He combined the gesture with her facial expression and body language, using his long study of humans and their ways to gather her meaning. He turned to the others, "it is alright to talk about it, she is ok for now." The looks of incredulity and disbelief matched his own, he turned back to Isolde as she nodded her head. She shrugged at his questioning look and look down into his small fire. He wondered how she knew he would understand what she wanted said.

"She was a very good marksman, her arrows saved us a few times." Avian spoke carefully, gauging the effect her words had. She might be sitting near Leanne but she didn't fully trust the small woman and likely wouldn't ever.

Malcolm swallowed the last bite of the meat stuffed bread he had served for their meal. "She could fire two arrows just as well as one. I would not have defeated Maeko without her aide."

Leanne drew her harp from somewhere under her cloak. She traced her fingers around the edge as she tightened the strings. Finally she let her fingers begin to pick out a sad tune that was hardened with pain.

We walk this world in hopes and tears 

_We always look toward the next day_

_Praying for happiness_

_Damning our tears_

_When finally we step of this earth_

_We may be gone forever,_

_If we didn't leave behind others to miss us._

_Life must go on in sadness,_

_As well as in pain and fear._

_Those gone look for us to make our way, _

_Make our way clear for us and others._

_Tears and fears,_

_Lost little dears and missing friends,_

_They all wait for us among golden fields and happy dreams._

Her fingers slowed on the harp until the last note quivered to a slow stop. "I have sung that song many times but it never becomes easier to sing." She held the harp in her arms as if cradling a baby but it was clear she wouldn't play again tonight.

Everyone's eyes were damp, even Avian's, everyone's except Payton's. While the song was lovely and sad at once it gave him no emotions and he made no attempt to act as if it did. "_You really should tell them. They would want to know this, and they deserve to as well._" Payton looked at the skull in his hand with its glowing spark before placing it back in its bag around his neck.

"I am not sure why you are all so upset over a death but I will make an attempt to lighten your hearts. Aliza is not dead." All he got was three deadly glares that promised slow death and a fresh burst of tears and sobbing from the woman at his side.

"I don't want to hear anymore lies necromancer. Human hearts are not meant for such sick jokes. Hold your tongue or mine may slip what it has long held." Avian let her threat hang in the air.

"You might break the oath mother placed on you but it would cause you much harm, more so since I speak the truth." Payton placed a hand on Isolde's shoulder but she struck his hand away before running into Leanne's open arms.

Payton stood and stretched to his full height, using every hard line of his body to dive his words. "I speak the truth when I say she didn't perish falling from that cliff. My golem saw it before it was destroyed. A man in sorceress robes appeared in the air above the ground and caught her before they both disappeared again."

Before he could say anymore Avian was standing over him and his bone armor had been completely shattered from her devastating kick that left his ribs hurting. "It told you not to toy with human hearts but you cant understand that because you have none." Payton tried to get up but she stomped a foot down on his face and leaning forward with her hands resting on her knee, pinning him and causing severe pain.

She turned to where the Malcolm and Leanne watched with blank expressions. "I was held by oath not to speak of his evil by my dieing mother but I will hold not hold an oath that has already proven false." She pressed harder with her foot, slowly pressing his head into the soil.

Payton brought his hands up to pull at her foot but before he could even grasp her boot a many pointed blade in the shape of a star pierced each hand, striking hard enough to show bloodied points on the other side. He cried out in pain before she shifted her foot, pushing her boot heel into his screaming mouth. "My brother was a sickly baby pronounced to die before the winter ended."

She glared down at his pain filled eyes as tears of pain ran down his face. "He lived longer than anyone could believe, two winters. Mother finally showing hope that he would live named him Payton on the first day of his second year. Payton means warrior's heart and she named him it because of his heart fighting with every beat and keep his frail body alive."

She closed her eyes to block away his face and her voice trembled as she held back her emotions. "In his third year he was still small and thin but alive and showing no sign of giving up life. It was during the harvest season and mother was outside hanging the laundry while I tickled Payton with leaves and watching him giggle and try catching it, I was only in my sixth year then."

She shook her head and Payton watched as a tear slid down her nose and fell, landing on his forehead. "A man came to into town, a dark evil man who only found pleasure in sick games of unyielding horror. He wandered into our yard and stood there silently until mother saw him. She asked him if he would care for some water, then were the days when evil was still stories and tales from distant lands. He accepted and mother brought him cup and they stood and talked of the weather and local events and the last town the man had passed through."

More tears fell now, splashing into Payton's eyes and across her boot but he couldn't see her face as light began to fall and covered it in shadow. "The man suddenly changed topics and stunned both me and my mother as he asked if she would like her son to be healthy. That was my mother continuing fear, as Payton had stayed small and sickly without gaining weight. My mother said yes without a moment to think what he meant."

The tears flowed steadily now and Payton brought one of his hands up, letting the salty fluid run over them and burn along the blade in his hand. "His hand lashed out and I can still remember the purple light as he tore something from my mothers spirit. She collapsed to the ground and moaned in pain while the man walked towards Payton and I. I watched as he placed a sparkling light next to Payton's mouth and let it go, letting that misty light be breathed deep by my brother. He took a skull from his belt then and reached into my brothers chest with his hand surrounded by that harsh purple light."

Avian finally took her boot from his face, but kicked him in the ribs before he could move. "The man took my brothers spirit, a piercing golden light, and placed it in that skull, letting the small hand take it and hold it as if it was a baby toy. My brother died that day and became nothing but an empty husk of flesh. Mother was fine for many days afterward but then as the soulless baby grew healthier she grew sicker. Soon after the fallowing winter she became bedridden and she called to me. She made me re-swear then that I should never tell anyone about what had happened. She also gave me another, not to tell Payton what was diffract about him or what that skull was."

"Why tell us then, it is a heavy oath to break for speaking an ill thought joke." Avian whipped her face away before turning back to Malcolm and the other who had sat silently through her story.

She walked over and sat calmly beside the fire. "I swore that I would keep them until he regained his soul. But in later years I could see the wrongness in him. He never laughed and wouldn't play anything just for the sake of playing. He had no emotions, no sorrow or joy; he couldn't understand what was wrong with me while I cried over a dieing bird. He has no heart and understands nothing about how one works."

Payton forced his way back to his feet, trailing blood as he walked to the fire. "I don't understand many things that people do but I do what should be done." He dropped down beside the fire and forced his pierced hands to move. He heard a tooth in his mouth crack as he bit down while tearing one of the bladed stars free.

He dropped the bloody star beside him and griped the other as blood ran quicker. "I was telling no lie sister. Aliza was saved by a sorcerer that knew how to teleport." He pulled on the star but his damaged hand wouldn't grip properly. Another hand griped his and he looked up into the bright eyes of Isolde. There could only be one thing her questioning hope filled face could mean. "Yes I am telling the truth."

Isolde smiled, her grin pulling the burn on her face in a strange mask of destroyed loveliness. She griped the star in her string calloused fingers and pulled it free so gently that it caused him little pain. She wrapped his hands in bandages, slowly and carefully smiling the whole time. "I didn't tell you immediately because I feared you would want to search right away while it was best to flee the enemy. The sorcerer will keep her safe and she will return to the encampment as soon as she can. It was best for us to flee so I stayed silent."

Isolde gently held his bandaged hand in hers and leaned forward, kissing him on the forehead. She sat down next to him and looked into the fire smiling. He leaned forward, resting his head on his knees and looked at where his blood had soaked the ground. Something stuck his side and he looked up, finding Avian watching him and a small purple vial next to him. He didn't reach for the potion yet, "is my soul really in the skull? Is that why I am as I am?"

Avian leaned back, letting her face fall into shadow. "Yes." Payton waited for more but it didn't come so he griped the vial between pained fingers and pulled the stopper free. As the potion went down he barely heard the silent words spoken under her breath. "Mother."

Payton then laid down and drew his single blanket from his pack. Tomorrow they would make it back to the encampment and perhaps they would find Aliza waiting. But he had no plays of staying with this group. He had a new goal in life, and nothing would stop him from finding it. He placed a hand around the small sack hung from his neck, "nothing."

* * *

Sorry for the change in perspective but I had planed for the story to fallow Aliza but I didn't want to leave Isolde out. I tried writing the perspective from her but you would be amazed how hard it is to write from a perspective you want to keep totally silent.

The whole soul thing with Payton is a really old idea my friends and me always talked about. I am into just about everything while my one friend is really religious and my other friend is a treky. The idea was to make a fantasy version of Data from Star Trek (I don't own those either) and what we came up with was a guy with no soul. The soul is what (by my religious friend) gives a person their emotions and makes man more than an intelligent animal. My other friend (the treky) thought on personality traits that this person might exhibit. Manly being poor understanding of actions and things deifying logic and always studying and trying to understand other people and imitates them. And me I came up with putting the soul in something and the character conversing with it about emotions and all that stuff, although when we discussed it I had put the soul in an old shoe as a matter of humor.

I really don't want a religious/ spiritual discussion but I do want reviews. If you do want to discuses, discus not preaches, religion and/or spiritual things email me with it.

The more reviews the faster I write. Seriously look at my Total Annihilation fic. One review and I haven't worked on it since, and I love the story ideas I have for it too. Also look at my Megamon fic. I hate it but its already catching up with my better fics because it gets reviewed and I feel compelled to work on it more. I write for myself but reviews carry big influence.

Review.


	8. FH chapter 8

Hello again. I'm back with a new chapter for you.

I don't own any rights to Diablo or Diablo2 or hellfire or LOD or any thing else I'm forgetting to list. The idea for this story is my own.

The character list will now only be shown when somebody new appears. It is just getting to long.

Leanne is my own char, don't try to steal her or she will skin you alive. Malcolm is my own char, try to steal him and he will feed you your own liver, in a light lemon sauce. Don't mess with Avian she likes to poison people. Aliza and Isolde are a package deal you can barrow them but you have to use them both together. Try to take Payton against his will and he will give you a long painful death and then bring you back only to start over. Dusan is really just a spirit in a skull that only Payton can hear so it would be stupid to take a skull that doesn't do anything. Guildain gets lost so please return him if you find him.

Sorry for the delay, you know how it is with games and work and whatnot.

* * *

The Forgotten Heroes.

C) 8

Aliza was assailed by pain and her first thought was that she had fallen right through the earth and into hell. This thought faded as the pain didn't increase, it didn't fade either but it didn't grow worse. But past the pain she could feel warmth, not fire roasting her skin but gental warmth that comes from many blankets.

She worked her eyes open again and gazed up at the sky overhead with its dark brooding clouds. As she awoke things became clearer, she was under a mound of slightly odorous furs and she could feel where her ribs and shoulder had broken and been set.

She heard the wet grinding sound she had associated with carver shamans reviving their smaller brethren. She tried sitting up but found the pain of her ribs wouldn't let her move while her arm with the broken shoulder wouldn't push her up without painful protest.

She managed to roll over and see where the sound was coming from. Their wasn't any carvers or the taller shaman but there was a man. The man was tall and slim but had a good set of muscles under the ruin covered red and blue robes and light armor he wore. The robes did little to hide the strange red armor of scales and hard horn covered shoulders. His head was shaved under the red-rimed skullcap and his skin was of a very dark completion.

The disturbing sound was the man's leg; it was warped around at horrible angles. His hand was glowing pink while his leg slowly spun around and straitened out. "A sorcerer!" even with her voice low the man heard her and turned to look at her while his leg continued to heal.

He watched her for a long while with a very blank expression, "hello. Have we meet?" he sounded confused and disoriented, even more than a sorcerer should be.

Aliza tried to sit up again, wondering why he didn't use that healing spell on her. She managed to get upright but she spent a good bit of time gasping for air afterwards. Finally she could talk, "no I don't think we have. My name is Aliza of the sisterhood of the sightless eye. Did you save me?"

He didn't seem to have heard her because he picked up a stone and was gazing at it like it was a diamond. "Hello? Are you ok?" Aliza tried to get up but only gasped as the pain almost made her black out.

The sorcerer didn't seam to notice her at all as she groaned and winced up onto her feet. This had to be one of those sorcerers who spent more time in magic than the world around them. "What is your name?"

He continued to study the wide flat stone in his hand as if he hadn't heard her; she was about to repeat herself when he dropped the stone. "Oh. Hello. I am Guildain, outcast of the Vizjerei fire sect."

He got to his feet and snapped his fingers, causing the many scrolls and tomes and bits of assorted wizardry into a pack much to small to have held it all. "I was on my way to find a priestess called Akara, do you know where she is?"

Aliza found her pack and bow, as well as QuickFrost, beside where she had been laid down. She had to hug her chest to alleviate the pain that came from even speaking. "Yes I do. She should be over that way, about seven leagues." She could tell where she was, having hunted all through these passes before the evil came however she was almost a mile away from where the cliffs had been. Guildain wouldn't have made it this far with his legs broken like they had been.

He looked off in the direction she had gestured and scratched his head; she hoped he wasn't as inept in a fight as he was now. He reached over his shoulder and into his pack, his entire arm disappearing up to the elbow without any bulging or filling the pack. She knew he was a magic user but even then her jaw dropped as he drew a very long staff with a slightly curved blade from his small pack. This was powerful magic.

Guildain studied the staff for a moment before reaching back over his shoulder and putting it into the magic pack again. His arm twisted around a few times and he drew out another staff, this one with a large headpiece caped with a large red gem.

He came over to her and laid his hand on her shoulder, not seaming to notice anything except the staff in his hand and the distant place she knew he couldn't see. She heard the crackle of lightning and suddenly the world warped around her like heat waves, blending and twisting into each other. With a snap of thunder and a small fling of sparks they where somewhere different than they had been a moment ago.

She stumbled away from his grip and looked around, finding landmarks she had long since memorized. "The stony plains." She looked at Guildain again, finding him studying the finely drawn runes on the staff as they twisted in on themselves and became different.

He sighed and put the staff into his strangely incanted pack again, "only ten charges left, ill have to find a source of raw mana." He actually sounded like a normal person while speaking of magic or as normal as a topic like magic would allow. He looked around again and the focus on his face slid away leaving that slightly confused look.

Aliza started walking, hoping he wouldn't be distracted and wander off. She was amazed that he had brought them so far with such a powerful spell. She was even more thankful he hadn't put them in the middle of stone or a dozen meters up in the air. He must be very skilled in magic to have used teleport, even more so to move him and another so far at once with such safety.

She winced with every step she took; her ribs must have been broken in more places than she thought. And her shoulder protested her holding her ribs so much that she had to use her other hand to hold both her ribs and her other arm. She was bout to ask Guildain to use that healing spell on her when she heard a rustle of paper beside her.

She turned to him and found he had drawn out a long scroll that was covered in what looked like charcoal. She looked closer and saw it was a rubbing of runes from something old and rough. She also noticed a string of yellow potions hanging at his belt, "what is that?"

He didn't respond for a long while, and then he rolled up the scroll and put it away in his pack. "It's a rubbing from a most unusual tree, I was hoping I could use it to get back to my home faster than the long in convent walk I would require otherwise."

Aliza found herself glancing at the potions on his belt, wondering what they were. They were larger than any potion she had ever seen, nearly as big as her palm, and a sparkling gold while the vile was caped with a small brass skull.

She thought it might have been thawing potions but the shear size and that he had so many dashed that idea. She looked up the road again and saw several lumbering forms as they trotted towards them using both short bowed legs and muscular forearms to move.

"Brutes'." Aliza pulled her bow from off her shoulder but could not string it because of the pain in her shoulders and ribs. She didn't even try to lift QuickFrost because if she couldn't string her longbow the recoil of the crossbow would make her pass out.

"wi' fran easat." Aliza glanced towards Guildain as she heard his whispered words. She saw a burst of bright light flare between his cupped hands before he drew back his arm and tossed the flickering light towards the brutes'. The light changed from slivery white to a pulsing orange as it flew, getting darker as it went. It struck the leading brute and Aliza tossed at hand over her eyes as nearly white-hot flames bust from the now blood red light.

When she had finally blinked away the after images flaring on her eyes she saw that the monsters where gone, replaced with a charred circle of ground several meters across. She was amazed to say the least, she had always thought her occasional exploding arrows where powerful but this hadn't even left bones.

She made herself stop staring at Guildain as they resumed walking, every step sending an increasingly painful jolt into her body. She was trying to keep her dignity and not ask for help, as was how a sister acted. Unless he offered help she was just going to have to deal with the pain.

A few miles latter she was still walking beside him and her eyes had lost their focus as she concentrated on the next step. She groaned in pain as a hand clamped down on her shoulder, the new pain and the old almost pushing her off the edge into fainting. She stifled another moan and looked at Guildain as he griped her shoulder.

His face was somewhere between distant confusion and rational thought, and he was frowning. She thought he might have finally realized she was hurt, that thought was dashed rapidly enough. "Do you have any magical training?"

She shook her head in an attempt not to hurt her ribs but that only made her shoulder bother her more. He continued to stare at her, his face becoming more focused all the while. Finally he held out his other hand and said, "Eipapi." A pink glow surrounded his hand, the same glow that had healed his leg earlier.

"Focus your thoughts onto the damage and how it would heal by itself. Then reach for your power and say the command, Eipapi." The glow disappeared and Aliza had no idea what he was talking about.

"Uiapia?" she didn't know what he wanted her to do, the only magic she could use was her exploding arrows and while not seen before they where just an innate ability brought out by the sisterhoods rigorous training.

Guildain shook his head and lifted her hand up and cradled it between his own. "No, Eipapi. Feel for your mana, let it come into you and take the form you need it to. Find your heart and it will guide you to your power."

Aliza closed her eyes and tried feeling for something inside her but only found pain and injury. She was about to open her eyes when she had the image of a crying Isolde standing over a freshly planted grave. Aliza feel a surge of energy as she realized that Isolde must think her dead and that she had to find her. Power surged into her and dampened everything around her, pain and misery washed under ripples of pure pleasure, sound smothered by the greatest music she couldn't imagine.

She felt something brushing her mind and opened her eyes, finding the world around her had changed. The trees and rocks now pulsed with the beating of life and the very air moved and flowed with streamers of the energy waiting in them. And most startling of all was the brilliant pillar of light before her that had been Guildain.

"Eipapi, tell it what you want and let it take what it wants." He spoke more than words, imaged entered her mind as he spoke, showing her what to do. Guildain released her hands and stepped back and Aliza knew that under that blinding light was a smile.

She raised both of her hands and felt the power trying to leap from her fingers, held in place by the lack of direction. She imaged the pain her body had forgotten under this bliss of magic and then pictured it healing as it would over time. "Eipapi." She barely whispered the word when her hands burst into a raging fire of pink and gold energy shot with silver and crystal.

She gasped as all the blissful sensations doubled and her knees threatened to drop her. The fire around her hands twisted and turned as no fire she had ever seen and slowly reached out tendrils towards her. She watched as the ethereal light entered her body, seeing it wrap into her flesh and digging itself into her very bones.

She gasped as her flesh rippled on her bones, bruises fading and torn muscles stitching back together and bones melted into water that slowly hardened back into bone. The light around her hand disappeared slowly but she found that she could still feel them there under her skin waiting to be called again.

She finally blinked, regretting it instantly as the world lost its glow around her and her body was screaming worse than if she ran to Westmarch without stopping. Her legs dropped from under her but Guildain's hands where there lifting her back up. She looked at him but couldn't see him as before, not as the glowing light or as the idle minded man she had been saved by. He was somewhere in between as she could see the body of the strange man but it was sharper as if that power was waiting in his skin to come out.

"That was good work for your first try, better than I expected. Come now, you will need to rest. Healing is a draining spell for someone young." Guildain put and arm around her shoulders and practically carried her towards a small group of stunted trees.

"I'm not that young. I have held the bow for nearly seven years now." His comment on her age had raised her temper a little. "And what was all that glowing?"

He actually laughed at her comment; his laugh was rich and rolling and made his lithe body shake. Calming himself her grinned at her, "you show your youth by not knowing what you did. I don't mean age but how well you feel the power. I will show you, but not now. You are tired and will need to let your body rest."

He sat her down beside a tree and reached into his bottomless pack and drew out a worn blanket for her. She wanted to question him further but she couldn't think clearly as he piled her gear beside her and covered her with the blanket. She barely managed to keep her eyes open long enough to see him draw the rubbing from under his robes again and sit down near her to read it.

* * *

She awoke with a scream, launching herself upright and sending the twisted blanket spinning away from her. She clutched her chest and gasped as sweat ran down her face. The dream was gone already from her memory but she knew it was the same that had bothered her before, and that it would bother her again.

She looked around and found herself along between the few trees they had camped between. She jumped to her feet, surprised to feel so good after feeling so tired the night before, and griped her bow. She strung it and pulled an arrow from the quiver still on her belt.

She walked calmly around the trees looking for the strange sorcerer or anything that might threaten her. After finding nothing in sight all around or even any tracks except her own from the night before she went back to where she had been sleeping. She gathered up her gear and readied herself to head of for the encampment thinking Guildain had become distracted and wondered off.

She picked up the blanket and started to fold it when a peace of paper dropped from it. She picked it up and blinked at the sparkling curving writing at the top of the page before letting her eyes continue down to writing she could read. 'Aliza. I should be back sometime before night. If I do not return before the morning of the next day I will not be returning. Take this note to Akara and tell her it is for the Cairn stones. Find a teacher young mage.'

Aliza read the last line twice and almost dropped it from shock; he thought she could be a magic user. She fell to her behind as she released what she had done last night, she was a magic user. She sat there for a long time without moving or even seeing what was around her as her mind tried adjusting to this revelation.

Long before she had been chosen to join the sisterhood she had wanted to be a sorceress but the few times a woman from the Zann Esu had come through her home town looking for girls she hadn't even be given a second glance. She had given up hope of ever being one when she turned eight years old, from there she devoted herself to learning how to hunt and track. That was why the sisterhood had wanted her and why her birth mother had agreed.

Aliza squashed the thought of her birth mother before she could dwell on it. The sisterhood was her family now and the woman who birthed her nothing but an image from the past. Aliza was pulled to her feet and crushed by arms bigger than her body; she thought briefly that Malcolm had found her. That thought was torn away when the arms, furry arms, continued to squeeze.

While lost in her thoughts a brut and stumbled across her and was now trying to crush her in a hug that was already threatening to crush her ribs once more. She gasped for air as she looked up into the mad, tortured eyes of the beast that stared right back. She screamed as her shoulder dislocated up it crushing pressure, the scream letting the little air she had left escape her lungs.

She tried to breath in more air but the brute's arms had already squeezed tighter and she could feel everything around her begin to darken. She blinked and an image of the Monastery before the corruption came to her mind. Young girls being led towards the large doors and looking both scared and frightened as they didn't know what would happen to them in their studies.

She blinked again and everything had changed, she was still in the beast's grip but now everything held that glow again. She looked around even while her body began to grow weaker and saw the dark stain that was everywhere. It streaked the rooks and crawled up the tree trunks while long dark wisps of smoke twisted the air into knots. She then looked into the brute's eyes again, seeing the dark cloud that had surrounded its mind.

She tried to recall the words Guildain had used to cast his fireball but they slipped away from her thoughts as if slick with sweat. She only knew one spell and before even the thought of it had entered her fading mind the same ethereal flames sprang from her hands. The flames dove into the brute and coiled around its brain, tearing at the darkness there and healing its pain.

She managed to hold onto the magic for a few moments longer before her smothered body pulled her away from it. The brute shuddered and fell while she slid into darkness. Once there her continuing nightmare began to plague her right away.

* * *

She awoke with a muffled scream, muffled by the large amount of weight and fur she was pressed against. She thought the brute might be torturing her by only crushing her while she was awake but she ruled that out when she heard its slow regular breathing. It was asleep with her still held in its arms, thankfully not as tight as before.

She tried to pull away but her body refused to move as she told it to, she was too weak to even lift her head. She tried again, making her arm move up and press against the brute's chest. She made no progress as the brute snorted in its sleep and flexed it arms once, crushing her against its chest again for a moment.

She tried reaching out for the light that was magic but it wasn't there and she could remember what she had done to find it. She felt around her waist for her belt knife but couldn't find it, only her quiver full of shattered arrows. They had been crushed during the brute's first hug.

"a' to'nt vm!" the brute woke up with a howl and jumped up, flinging Aliza away as it backed up against a tree and swatted at the small burn on its big shoulder. Guildain came running up and flung out his hand, sending another small blast of fire to strike the brute.

Aliza made it back to her feet and watched as the brute tried cowering down under Guildain's bolts of fire. It was actually afraid and it wasn't ever trying to strike back even as Guildain came right up to it. "Guildain. Look at its eyes."

Guildain stopped and looked back at her as if she was the one prone to mental lapses. After a moment her turned back around at saw the brute was staring at him with big brown eyes that ran with tears of pain and terror. Guildain turned back to look at Aliza again, "what did you do to it?"

Aliza couldn't believe this, it sounded like her was shouting at her about blasting it with fire. "I don't know it was crushing me so it hit it with the only spell I know."

Guildain started pacing back and forth between her and the brute. He muttered under his breath and kept tossing glances at first her and then the brute. Finally he stopped before the brute, which had started to smear dirt and spit over the burns Guildain had inflicted on it. When it realized Guildain was standing over it again it slinked back and folded itself down against the tree as if trying to become a new layer of bark.

Guildain waved his hand at the brute and after a few moments of trembling it got up and started off at a brisk run. Guildain then turned to her and looked her up and down as if it was the first time, and likely it was. His face was hard lined and set and there wasn't a trace of his distant gaze. "You used healing to fight a brute? How did you know it would work or even if it could be healed of its madness."

He continued to pace as she leaned back against another tree, careful with her dislocated shoulder. "I don't know it was the only thing I could think of and I didn't have my belt knife. It worked, somehow." He continued to pace and she wondered if he had went back into his mind and magic.

"It did even if it shouldn't have. I would ask you what you did but I doubt you would know what you did even if you weren't just reacting." He stopped and looked at her again and for a moment she thought she saw a hint of a smile on his face, but only for a moment. "Until you know what you're doing you aren't going to use magic again unless I'm with you. You are now my apprentice and I expect you to remember that." He turned and started walking towards the road that led towards the encampment.

She struggled to keep up with the seemingly porpoise driven man. He had been so scattered when she had first came across him and know after less than two days he was starting to act like someone living in this life. She wondered what was changing him or if he had some other reason for trying to escape into the magic. She could understand wanting to be in the magic, it was more intoxication than anything she had ever sampled before. But he didn't strike her as someone who uses magic for the rush.

* * *

Short chapter but I was in a rush and wanted to get Guildain's intro chapter out of the way. There will be something more interesting next chapter.

Ill be answering a lot of stuff about magic in the next chapter. And Aliza will NOT become a sorceress.

Later


	9. FH Chapter 9

Hello again. I'm back with a new chapter for you all.

I don't own any rights to Diablo or Diablo2 or hellfire or LOD or any thing else I'm forgetting to list. The idea for this story is my own.

The character list will now only be shown when somebody new appears. It is just getting to long.

Sorry for the delay but I'm busy during summer, not to mention the heat has my brain frying like an egg. And why would Aliza learn Amazon skills? She is a Rogue. Honestly, hasn't anybody ever played Diablo or Hellfire?

* * *

The Forgotten Heroes.

C) 9

Aliza sighed as the rogue encampment came into view. With the increasing number of monsters and Guildain teaching her magic they had been severely delayed. She had already learned a great deal about the nature of magic and even a few simple spells. The large spell tome Guildain had given her tugged at her pack and weighted her down but it held such secrets that she wouldn't think of letting it out of her grasp.

The encampment had grown a bit larger since she had seen it last but it was still a welcome sight after days away from everyone she knew. She hoped Isolde was there and all right. First she would find Isolde and then she would find some good food, for days she had only at the strange meat-bread from Guildain's bottomless pack.

As they camp closer she could hear the calls of the sentries as they sent for Kashya. Sure enough Kashya meet them at the front gate along with Akara. Kashya didn't wait for pleasantries as she grabbed Aliza's arm and dragged her off to the fire pit in the center of the camp.

Kashya dumped her on the first log seat and stood before her, making Aliza crane her head up at her. "Scout you had better tell me what happened out there." With the glare on Kashya's face it was not a good idea to plead road weary. So she started her story when she had left the encampment with Avian and Isolde. After a few hours and several repetitions Kashya left her with orders to rest.

After the long debriefing everything was driven out of Aliza's mind except sleep. She managed to stumble into the bunk tent where most the rogue's slept and collapsed on the first empty cot. The dreams where already waiting for her…

--------

Heavy smothering darkness all around her, pressing down on her. Slime and mucus filling her mouth and drowning her cries, rotting soil filling her nostrils and filling her lungs with putrid stench.

She twisted and turned, trying to escape the pressing earth that was her grave. Finally her clawing had found air and she struggled to pull herself free. She struggled up out of the black churned earth and clapped there as her breath rattled in her pained lungs.

After moments she heard the moans and grunts of other creatures pushing up from the earth. She forced her feet under her as she looked around, the unmarked graves around her churning as rotten claws burst up from underneath. She turned and started to run, managing only a fast hobble as her legs refused to move quickly.

Grinding old bones covered by slipping flesh made sounds that twisted her empty stomach. She could hear them gaining on her and knew that she would never outrun them but couldn't bring herself to stop and fight.

Suddenly as if it had been drawn only a moment ago a river appeared before her. It was deep and wide but running faster than she could hope to survive swimming across. She heard the heavy steps and grinding bones behind her and her body slowly turned as if of its own volition.

In a semicircle around her was a horde of undead, skeletons and zombies of every kind imaginable, wraths and vampires and things she didn't want to look at. Standing before them all was a glowing yellow zombie with a missing eye squirming over with maggots and flies.

She gasped between her teeth as the stanch of rotting death invaded her senses. At the monster's first step towards her she turned to leap into the river only to find the river gone, replaced by another half circle of undead. "You are our bride, never to part. Even in death we are together."

Aliza whipped around again as the yellow zombie spoke with such finesse, despite its insect filled mouth and split thought. "I am your lord. I hold all those who join us in living death." All around there was a gurgling cheer that made every hair on Aliza's body stand strait. "I am first and I will be the last when my great lord ends this existence. You will see it as my queen."

Aliza screamed as the masses of undead began to crush in on her from every direction. All around her where cracked bones and festering flesh and through it all ran streaks of gold. "Our queen, our mistress." The death beings around her chanted it as if it held the warmth of life they missed so dearly.

Aliza leapt from her cot with a scream and twisted her head around with wide eyes looking for… 'For what?' she asked herself. Whatever dream frightened her so much was already fading away. Thankfully she was the only one in the tent at the moment and none seemed to be coming to investigate her scream.

She gathered her gear and pack from where she had stacked it and dressed rapidly after only a simple wash with a damp cloth she left the tent. She looked around the camp and noticed that while it was far from cheerful it wasn't as foreboding as it had been before she left.

She went towards the back of the camp, towards Charsi's forge. Once there she waited for Charsi to finish pounding out a simple breastplate someone must have found. "Aliza? I thought someone said you where back. What can I do for you?" it wasn't often that someone could make Charsi speechless but it happened as Aliza started to empty her pack of the loot she had found while traveling with Avian and later Guildan.

Magical knifes and small charms, carefully folded leather and chain armor even a few wands and enchanted globes. Aliza also dropped a few pooches of gold and gems, knowing that she wouldn't be able to use even a fraction of them all, and kept some of the better gems and only a few thousand in gold. Tucked behind her belt was a perfect diamond she had found just outside the cold plains and felt compelled to keep.

She then handed Charsi a bundle of oiled cloth holding a nice peace of ring mail and asked her to fix it to her size. After making sure it would be ready soon she set off for the next important matter, good food. Her feet took her to the center of camp even though her nose told her that if Malcolm was there he wasn't cooking.

She walked into the center of camp and had to leap back as her newfound sense of magic jolted her with a feeling of raw power. Moments after her magic sense had warned her a line slashed up from the ground and in a trick of her eye seamed to turn sideways reviling a blue portal through witch stumbled a man of old age and bad health. He made two steps before falling to the ground.

She found herself kneeling beside him with her hands glowing with the first spell Guildan had taught her, healing. Sweat broke out on her forehead as she pored her energy into the spell. Countless burses and broken bones mended under her direction, cuts and sores welded shut and faded and his heart began to beat stronger.

A hand of long fingers drawn thin with age and wasting hunger suddenly seized her own. "That is enough. I will be fine after some rest, I thank you young Sister." The man slumped again in her arms, his arthritic hands releasing hers. She braced him over her shoulder and started for where she thought Akara's tent would be in the encampments new shape.

While she was gone the encampment had grown outward, nearly doubling in size. The outside wall was much like the last but the old was still standing and was much stronger than it had been. Akara's tent was still where it had been before and Aliza happily stumbled inside with the man.

"Akara! I found this man, he came into the camp by a strange blue portal." Akara stood up from the small makeshift potion still and tuned to her adjusting her robes.

"Thank you Aliza place him on my cot please. I had hoped he would come soon." Aliza lowered him to the directed cot with its many woven quilts and blankets. She glanced of and found Akara had yet to look at the man and was praying at the small sculpture of the Sightless Eye. The statue was of a blank orb in a pair of long lashed eyelids with several weapons, weapons the rouges wont use, standing around it as its legs and towering up over it.

Aliza waited for Akara to look after the man but it was like she had forgotten him. When Aliza was about to ask why she wasn't doing anything Akara spoke, "easy young one. I can do no more for him than you have already done. The rest of his recovery will have to wait until he wakes." Aliza bowed her head and left the tent, unsurprised at Akara knowing of her magic or healing the man. It was after all what she did in duty to the Sightless Eye that let her eyes roam so far from her body.

She staggered after only a few steps from Akara's tent, the loss of energy brought on by such heavy healing finally striking her. She stumbled again as she struggled to keep her feet, her eyes and head seemingly made of stone and trying to drag her down. A firm hand caught her arm and pulled her upright before cramming a very battered staff into her hands.

She flinched and tried to toss away the weapon, finding her hand squeezed over it by another pair. "Press the blue stones." Under her palms she found soft round spots and pressed them hard with the heel of her hands. Her eyes snapped open as the staff flared with blue light and she felt her energy returning.

The staff was an old beaten thing, cracked and chipped countless times but tenderly repaired and cared for. She looked up and found Guildain was the one who forced it into her hands. "You shouldn't let your energy go so low as to disable yourself." His hands left hers and she made to give back the staff, "keep it. I know you wont use it in battle but keep it for when your energy is low. It was my first staff. It is only right you use it as my student."

Aliza really didn't want to carry the staff but she knew he would smack her with a wallop of magic if she didn't take it. She could convince him that while magic was incredible she didn't want to become a mage. She griped the short staff and used it as a walking staff as the headed towards the mess tent.

After slimy soup and a burnt peace of some mystery meat Aliza left the mess tent with Guildain beside her. And while the food was frightfully prepared it need rate better than the meat rolls form Guildain's pack. He was slowly reciting a chant of spells and she kept an ear to him as they moved around the camp.

Despite her feelings towards other weapons the staff in her hands felt nice. She crushed that though before it could lead anywhere. She was a rogue and they only showed their prowess with bows.

Then a thought occurred to her, if Charsi had the mauils from the monastery the staff could be remade as a bow. She turned and with Guildain following she went towards the command tent that Kashya spent most her time at. She never got there.

Beside her Guildain froze and a moment later Aliza did to as her magic sense told her someone was around the other side of the wagon, someone powerful. Aliza didn't know why but this glow of personal power was if she had felt it before. It wasn't as powerful and Guildain but it was far more powerful than herself.

Guildain looked pale and his eyes where distant as he slowly came around the wagon with Aliza following. She stopped when she saw Malcolm talking to Leanne about an old friend. Leanne was the one with the strong magical powers, she glowed much like Guildain but with a slightly bluish tint amongst the glow.

Leanne was listening to Malcolm with a frown as he spoke of missing Griswald and glad he was free of his torment. Leanne blinked and turned her head, a smile appearing as she saw Aliza, a smile that faded a bit as she saw Guildan.

Malcolm turned and saw both Aliza and Guildan and rushed to them, capturing them both in a suffocating hug that made Aliza wheeze for breath. "My small friends." He put them both on the ground and grinned at them. "Isolde is looking for you." With that he let go of her shoulder and pulled a still frozen Guildan along with him towards the fire pit.

Leanne stayed with Aliza as the two vastly different men walked away. "I thought it would have been him who saved you. He was one of our companions at Tristram in the battle of hell." She wasn't speaking to Aliza, not entirely, but to herself as memories flitted across her mind. "His brother, a monk called Faldain, was torn apart buy a deceptive goat-man that tried buying his safety with trinkets. After that Guildan began retreating into the magic where his memories started to fade."

Leanne shook herself and noticed Aliza looking at her in surprise. "Don't be alarmed, I know you thought us from Tristram long before this." She gestured with her small agile hands towards where Malcolm and Guildan had gone. "Come. Your sister is waiting most anxiously."

Sure enough the moment she came into the open around the central fire pit Isolde griped her in an iron strong hug. Tears of joy sprang into her eyes and she wrapped her arms around her sister and let the tension, one she only knew at the edge of her mind, slipped away.

After long moments they released each other and looked at one another as though it had been years instead of days. Isolde's hair was shorter, burnt off from some attack, and her leather armor was gone, replaced by a shining breastplate. Aliza knew that her leather armor was in bad form, slashed and burnt and even brittle from battles and misfired magic spells she had started to learn.

They sat down on one of the logs around the fire and Aliza looked around at the smiling faces. Malcolm was sitting besides a slightly hazy eyed Guildan and they both looked happy as they traded new tales, the stories went mostly one way but a few where returned. Leanne was, surprisingly, sitting next to Avian and they actually seamed non-hostile towards each other as Avian sharpened a curved dagger and Leanne tightened the strings of her harp.

She saw no sign of the necromancer, Payton, and was fine with that as she always felt wrong around him. Everyone seamed in good sprits and as she looked around she realized that the entire encampment seamed glad to have these strangers here. These four had done so much already, more if they had really been at Tristram, that the people in the encampment felt much better over the odds of victory.

"Greetings. It is good to meet to once more heroes and it is good to see new heroes arising to fight beside them." Aliza blinked and turned her head to watch the old man she had left at Akara's tent walking towards them. He was still bone thin and he leaned on a gnarled staff and had a blue robe wrapped around his body.

"Deckard Cain! Good to see your blue stepping wells didn't fail to bring you to safety." Malcolm leapt up from his seat and griped Cain's shoulder earning a glare from Leanne as Deckard winced.

"Yes north man the portal worked as it was intended." Deckard Cain settled himself down on a log where they could all see him and where he could study them. "I was unable to stop the slaughter of Tristram but I see that not all its heroes fell with it."

For a long while he studied them all and finally he sighed with resignation. "There where so many great warriors and mages at Tristram that died when the demons swarmed up from the broken remains of the church. I fear that they failed because the evil that dwelt there has begun to spread. We are dealing with a great evil that has taken the monastery and it must be purged before it can tap into the power that dwells in these strange fault valleys."

Deckard fell silent and seamed to turn in on himself while Aliza thought on what was said. She almost fell off her seat when she realized that he was including her when he was talking about heroes. He thought she was a heroin, she wasn't. Was she?

* * *

Short chapter but I'm over loaded with so many different fics. Sorry I didn't get to the magic, plot was more important so I postponed the fun stuff. And yes I will tell the story of Tristram and the dark tower as well, I have plans for them and it isn't yet time to hear about them.

Later


	10. FH Chapter 10

I don't believe it! I LIVE! Sees aggravated readers I wonder how long that will last…

I don't own any rights to Diablo or Diablo2 or hellfire or LOD or any thing else I'm forgetting to list. The idea for this story is my own.

The character list will now only be shown when somebody new appears. It is just getting too long.

Again Sorry for the delay but I have been con'ed into doing original fictions. As such I'm spending a lot of time on those. Why am I spend more time on those? Because if I can make them a least half decent I can sell them and make cash while fics are just for fun and the feeling of achievement. I'm a sellout wanta be, sorry.

* * *

The Forgotten Heroes.

C) 10

Aliza awoke with a elbow in her side and took a moment to swat Isolde upside her head. The other rogue woke with a start, rubbing her red-brown hair as she looked around the tent. Aliza sat up too, running her fingers through her hair and spinning it into a simple ponytail witch she put her 'hair tie' into. The crude arrow had been broken and shortened a while ago but other than being only a few inches long was much the same.

Isolde rolled from the wide cot, landing on the ground a moment before she could catch herself and sat there laughing softly as she rubbed the hip she had landed on. Aliza grinned herself as she got up and started pulling on her new cloths, given to her by one of the few seamstresses in the encampment.

Good thick brown woolen pants, stiffened around knees and hips with leather, a white undershirt that was only a little too small in the bosom and a thick dark green overcoat that was more like quilted armor than a coat. She stood and stretched a bit, feeling the somewhat new material of her clothes to see if it was too restrictive, it wasn't. She turned and saw Isolde pulling on a similar set of clothes, only a bit lighter in color and having shorter sleeves in the way she liked.

Having a slightly better foothold here meant that a bit more time could be spent on things other than fighting for survival. No more running around in summer scouting gear. Thin leather armor vests and either loincloths or insanely tight leather pants where not meant for cold weather (see 1 below). She couldn't wait for this unnatural taint to leave the world and let the interrupted summer continue. At least with these better clothes they wouldn't get ill as easily.

She picked up QuickFrost and hung it from her belt and then gathered up her long bow to check it for any cracks. The small sound of fingernails dragging across canvas made her and Isolde look over to the tent flap. After a long moment Isolde went over and lifted the flap, neither of them was used to having a private room, well as private as blood sisters got (see 2 below).

She smiled as Isolde turned back from the tent flap with a bundle, probably Aliza's new ring mail. Aliza held up her right hand, showing the slightly puffy red wound that went in her palm and out the back. Isolde blushed for a moment before holding up her left, reveling her own wound. These wounds wouldn't be treated with potions, just bandages and ointment so that the scars would show.

They had managed to get Akara to perform the blood-fletching (see 3below) after getting Charsi's and, surprisingly, Kashya's blessing. The pain of her stiff hand was worth knowing that she wouldn't have to leave Isolde alone again soon or for anything less than dire circumstances.

The package did indeed contain Aliza's ring mail, neatly hemmed and tucked to fit her in both size and form, and a dozen bowstrings and two new quivers of iron tipped arrows. It would never stop amazing her that Charsi could do such marvelous work with metals, things like this ring mail or chain mail often came out better than good cloth off a loom. She dropped it over her head and drew the bracing straps snug around her chest and waist so it wouldn't shift or jingle excessively, leaving the tail flaps drape down over her hips and thighs.

She then helped Isolde put on her breastplate, it hadn't been shaped yet and was little more than a round barrel of shining steel held on by clips and straps. Aliza joked that Isolde was so flat she shouldn't bother having it shaped. Isolde blushed slightly and mimicked how Aliza was starting to act because of her developing bust, strutting around with shoulders back and chest trust forward, stumbling every other step.

The two of them where laughing as they left their tent and set off to find food and get the ointments and bandages from Akara. The pain in their hands was forgotten as their noses told them that Malcolm was cooking somewhere.

------

In short order they found themselves in a long line waiting with plates in hand for the amazing cooking they could smell. Strangely enough it appeared as if Malcolm had commandeered the mess hall, somehow resting control away from the so-called chiefs that had found their way into the encampment. The back of the tent, where the ovens and cook pits had been, had been opened to the air and Malcolm was their brandishing an enormous wooden spatula as he towered over everyone.

He breathed deeply and Aliza saw several people in line to get into the tent flinch before a incredibly loud shout split the air, trying to split her head too. The unfortunate cook was trembling before the northman when the tirade of his faults ended, few of the faults had anything to do with the burnt side of lamb or even cooking, unless of course his mother was nearby.

Both Isolde and Aliza found this very humorous, their laughter bringing them to the attention to the barbarian cook. He called them to the front, into the crowded mess tent and promptly sat them down on benches inside the cook area where he served them himself. A nice lentil soup was followed by soft, bread coated vegetables and some kind of berry juice that had a distinct hint of mint.

Malcolm had little time to talk, he had decided to show the chiefs how to cook 'proper warrior food', and was having a rough time of it. Aliza slowed her fork as she realized what some of the barbarians seasonings where. Bits of poisonous plants or the less desirable organs from unappetizing animals, it turned out he would use anything that wasn't rotten in some way or another and even then their where things that he took off things that where rotting.

Isolde shrugged and kept eating, after a moment so did Aliza, it couldn't kill them any faster than the strange concoctions that the mess tent chefs normally made. And it tasted divine. The two of them gave their complements to Malcolm and left him waving his spatula at another cook.

Bellies full and ears a little sore from the barbarian cook shouting at other cooks they went off to find Akara for the ointments needed to clean their hands. Passing near the center of the encampment and the fire ring they heard the gentle strumming of fingers on harp strings. They turned aside for a moment, expecting to find Leanne playing her harp for someone by the glowing embers of last night's fires.

Aliza stopped dead when she came into sight of the camp center and Isolde actually swore out loud. Avian was sitting near Leanne with a harp, playing it with a single hand while the other adjusted the strings continually. Managing a variety of tones from only three strings. It wasn't any of Leanne's many harps, she had several throughout that cloak as well as other instruments, and the imposable thought was that it belonged to Avian.

No one was in sight except for the assassin and the bard, spots of blood on the ground in places and the sharp multi-pointed stars beside Avian's log made clear why. The two Rouges backed away before the Assassin could finish the song and decide weather or not to toss those stars. As they went around one of the short stonewalls they heard Leanne comment of Avian's playing.

Aliza shook off the weirdness of an assassin being so friendly with her possible target. She was just glad that Avian was willing to wait for conformation before killing Leanne, or trying to. The glow of Leanne's power still shined at the corner of Aliza's eye. Her magic and her strange daggers would make even a skilled assassin wonder how to attempt the deed.

They dogged children on the way to Akara's tent, it was strange seeing children running around the encampment playing and shouting during these bleak days. The children had come in from farms and small towns and plantations from all over the area, their families abandoning home for the vague promise of protection.

Thinking about it now Aliza didn't think it was really that bleak today. The rains seemed to be suspended and the clouds where tempting everyone with bright spots that glanced down at them, coming as close to full light as it had been in a while. The craftsmen where sober, a rare occurrence even without the monsters about, and where trying to ply their craft and learn new ideas from one another.

Guildain was sitting outside the camp, his raging magical energy letting her know he was crafting some kind of ward as well as where he was. He took as many chances to evade the encampment as possible but it seemed that Decard Cain and Akara spent much of their limited free hours conversing with him on different aspects of spiritual and magical energies. He barely had time to advise her in what spells to study from the massive tomb he had given her and even less to let her demonstrate.

Finally the two where outside Akara's tent, a small crude thing that emanated a strong smell of brewing potions and harsh spices. It wasn't exactly what anyone would associate with a high priestess but it matched Akara perfectly. Scratching at the flap Isolde waited for a scant second before lifting the flap and ducking in.

With a loud gasp Isolde dove back out the tent, a blush turning her face a dark red broken only by the burn scar staying its normal shade. After a moment Decard Cain came out of the tent, a slight grin on his face. "Hello young Sisters. I fear that Akara is out with Guildain setting a ward to keep away weaker demons. She let me the use of her tent to bathe." He turned back and started back into the tent, he was clasping his blue robe around him. He stopped and looked back at Isolde with a grin on his face, "you really should wait to be summoned inside before entering, particularly when not in a monastery of only women."

Isolde turned even redder and Aliza burst out laughing, Isolde blushed further, looking ready to bust a vein. Her blush still lighting her face Isolde gave a silent chuckle, this only set Aliza laughing harder. The two of them laughed their way back to their tent, not having anything to do at the moment.

Rubbing humor tears from her eyes Aliza nudged Isolde in the ribs as they entered their small tent. "So how did he look?" the blush that had been beginning to fade erupted again. "I can't help but see him as a skeleton under those robes. So what's he got?" it was very fun to make her excessively shy sister blush so much.

She dropped onto the cot and laughed as Isolde sat down on her iron bound loot chest. "What about you and Payton?" Aliza froze at hearing Isolde say this.

The other day she had stumbled across the necromancer hiding behind Ghead's Wagon with a few tombs. She had sat down beside him and asked if she could study them as well, after she was certain they weren't his normal dark magic's. She couldn't seam to resist the idea of new magic.

After a few hours she had managed to learn the basics of a few strange spells, only one that could be used to fight in any way but mostly just amusing ones that could make aspects of daily chores easer. What Isolde had been referring to was when Aliza had tried buying a book from Payton.

It was a small tomb of silly things, a magical prank book really, and she offered him a good deal of her coin for it. He had no wish to let anything, even that book, go until after he had learned it and the tomb in question was far down on his list of study. She tried bargaining but he kept refusing, to the point she wanted to hit him with it.

Then she had an idea. She offered him an exchange, she would talk to him about emotions, having heard his story from Isolde, if he 'loaned' her some of his tombs. It was a fury of hard bargaining from there on. Her temper had broken at some point and she lashed out at him.

They rolled about for a while before she managed to pin him, while frail he was quite limber and slipped from holds easily. She was straddled across his waist with her arms holding his arms down, their sweaty faces inches away from one another. Before she could growl about his inane demands Kashya had appeared.

Instead of chewing Aliza out she burst out laughing and walked away calling about 'young woman's tastes in pale men' to any nearby. Aliza had rapidly vanished and hoped that Kashya would not tell anyone about who she saw doing what she thought she saw. Apparently she did tell someone or else Isolde had found out another way.

"What about him?" Aliza's face was hot and she knew she was blushing to beat Isolde's face. "Nothing happened, I was just trying to wrestle a book away from him. I don't even like him." Isolde just nodded, her expression saying 'sure you don't.'

Aliza was trying to stutter a protest out when the tent flap was tossed open. Kashya stepped in and Aliza and Isolde straitened up, waiting to hear what their commander wanted. "I hear that you two are going with those four fools."

"Yes Battle Eagle. They want us along because…" Kashya cut her off with a slice of her hand. Aliza shut her teeth and waited to see weather Kashya would allow them to go or not.

Kashya gestured for them to take a seat, sitting on a chest by the wall as they sat on their cot. "As I'm sure you both know the sisterhood has held the monastery for many ages. And those outsiders that come in are rarely allowed further than the barracks." Kashya leaned back, crossing her ankles and lacing her fingers in her lap. "Most likely these four will be going right to the depths of the monastery. That is where Andariel is certain to have taken abode."

Kashya looked relaxed, something she most certainly wasn't, she was so wound up that her hands were white where they griped each other and a vain throbbed in her forehead. "The sister's have gathered many things of wealth over the ages, the last few decades in particular. They where hidden in chambers and chests and buried in caskets with our honored dead."

Kashya was watching the two rouges closely, reassuring her mind that they where listening. "Most likely the demons have found much and removed it from its rightful places. If you find any of these while traveling with these four… adventures, convince them that they shouldn't be disturbed. Sealed rooms, locked chests, above all caskets, should be left alone. If they insist for some reason take note of what they take, we will find a way to deal with them in such a circumstance."

Without another word Kashya stood and strode from the tent, leaving a disbelieving pair of rouges in her wake. Neither of them could recall all that much in the monastery that could be constituted as worth good wealth, but they weren't that old yet and only recently went past the rank of scout.

Isolde picked up her bow, testing the frayed looking string on EverSting. The green gold bow was always strung and despite looking frayed that string wouldn't snap or cut. Now that she was able to see magic she could see that there was a strange glow around the bone of the bow. Aliza didn't know what the glow meant, maybe she would ask Decard, he was good at identifying things.

Today they where resting, a rare occurrence in the two rouges memories at the monastery or the encampment, because tomorrow they would be leading the four hero's to the monastery and down into the depths beneath it. Aliza wasn't sure weather she should be scared or thrilled.

Her fingers dipped behind her belt and she blinked when her fingers didn't find the peace of cloth she had had there for so long now. She smiled as she realized where it went; she had found a gem cutter in the camp. He was traveling with Wariv to Lut Golane but had found a good trade here with all the gems found on bodies of monsters. She was having him cut her perfect diamond into and arrowhead, it would make a good charm if she figured out the exact spell to cast on it.

The copper and steel frame was ready and tucked in the bottom of one of her chests, waiting for the diamond and the spell that would charge it with an effect. Beside it was a small round peace of ivory, it had cost her a bit to get it, and it was coming along slowly. Sharp sigils and sinuous curves inlaid with bits of sliver and brass, it was for Isolde and would do something else than her own.

Isolde was testing her spare bow and checking her arrows, one by one. Every now and then one would be tossed aside, having a crack or some other flaw that had been missed the first time placed in the quiver. Aliza sat down and brought out her own quivers, all five of them. They didn't know how many they would be able to find once in the monastery, hopefully enough to make it either to victory or at least cover their withdrawal.

------

Sitting around the fire on logs and stumps the Knifes Edge, what Kashya was calling the group that would attack Andariel, was enjoying the last hours of the day. Malcolm had a split over the fire and was slowly turning the large sides of beef above the flames, he was going to make them into meat bread for their packs tomorrow but that didn't stop him from slicing of some for eating now.

Leanne had a flute, made of a handful of dry reeds with small holes cut in places, against her lips and was playing a wistful little tune that some of the other team was dancing too. The other team was the Hammer Stroke, the one that would start the attack tomorrow. The hammer team wouldn't try for Andariel, only to cause as much chaos as possible, if by chance they made it to the inner cloister they where to draw back and fortify their hold there.

Avain was sitting along beside Isolde, sharpening her newly repaired katar and counting her potions in her belt. Isolde was chewing on a peace of beef and listening to Leanne's flute. She was smiling, the act pulling at the twisted burn scar on her cheek and the fire shining in her eyes, it was clear she was excited about tomorrow.

Guildain was sitting beside Aliza, Malcolm on his other side, and had one of his many tombs out and was showing Aliza some of the enchantments she could use on her charms. They where far from simple but she felt confidant she could do it.

Decard Cain was asleep where he sat between Malcolm and Leanne, his thin frame slumped down until he looked like a skeleton in a blue robe, the fire light on his meatless face only making the idea look realer.

Here they all sat in a ring, trying to enjoy what calm they could, tomorrow would be a battle like none the sisterhood had ever encountered before. Aliza knew her skills with her bow had improved while helping the hero's but it surprised her to see her fellow sisters, sisters that were recently above her, having to spend time at the targets tonight reassuring themselves of their aim. She herself felt as if could wake up tomorrow under attack and put an arrow through a monsters eye before stretching out.

Isolde was even better than her, the shorter girl could unleash arrows so fast that her quivers drained in moments and yet her aim was as good as always. Added to the frost her arrows seamed to carry permanently she could break any charge or pierce the enemy ranks cleanly.

Aliza knew her crossbow received more than a few curious looks but she felt confidant with such a powerful weapon always ready and hanging at her side. It wasn't as accurate as her long bow, for all its power it couldn't reliably hit anything more than a hundred yards away, a very short distance for any rogue to not hit accurately.

She was jarred from her thoughts as Akara came to the fireside and waited for silence, it only took long enough for some of the drunkards to be smacked silent. "tomorrow is a vast battle set before us. We will submit all our forces towards this goal but everyone must understand one thing. To fail is to die. Perhaps not tomorrow or even at the hands of these evils in our lands. If we can not repel Andariel we will be forced to watch our lands and fellow men and women rot as Andariel's evil poisons our world around us."

Decard Cain stood as Akara left the fireside, "challenges are what make men and women into hero's or foolish legends. All that can be done is try to be seen as anything but Fools. To be a hero forgotten is better than a fool taunted for long ages."

With those words people began drifting away to their tents with confused minds and worries over the battle tomorrow, the jovial mood had been effectively returned to somber. The hero's too began drifting away and the two fletching sisters took this chance to head for their tent as well. A nice rest would be good before tomorrow; Aliza simply hoped it was another dream free night but her hopes where not high in that matter.

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1. A recent fan fic pointed out the poor chose of clothing that the rouges had. That author took a different approach to reasoning the skimpy outfits. I took this one because then I get to have them run around scantily clad when the weather gets warmer. 

2. Blood-sister or fletching-sister, when two rogues take one another as siblings. Much closer than Near-sisters and often natural sisters. Through a short ceremony, over seen by at least a fledgling priestess and giving the blessing of at least two sisters of higher rank a un-tipped arrow would be driven into their clasped hands (dominate hands) and drawn out the other side. The shaft would be then turned around and threaded back into the wound. This all is a signification for the two's (or more) willingness to save the other at any cost to themselves and that they now had the same blood in their flesh. After this they are privileged to share a larger sleeping area dependant on their ranking and availability of room. They are not allowed to be separated by any order short of one from the high priestess or Battle Eagle.

3. Blood-fletching, name of the ceremony by witch two rogues become blood-sisters.

I will say this here and now, please don't take it negatively, if you haven't ever played Diablo 1 and/or hellfire (with the command line to unlock the bard and barbarian) go out and find it and play it. It is a bit of a step down from D2, in some regards and better in others, but if you're obsessed with the story of Sanctuary you should really have/play d1 and hellfire. I'm fairly certain you can find the full game out there online legally now, don't hold me to that though. Because of distractions and what not it took me a long while to write this, I started it just after I last updated.

review if you want more sooner.


	11. FH Chapter 11

Hello again Diablo fans. It's been I while and I am sorry to have made you wait so long but I have many reasons that you likely don't care about and I don't feel like listing. So here is the next chapter of the Forgotten Heros. I'm finding myself wanting to postpone the story more and more as we approach the big bad boss Bh.

The Forgotten Heroes.

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C) 11

Aliza gritted her teeth and fumbled a potion from her belt, not able to tell the taste apart from the blood filling her mouth. The plump bottle had scarcely enough power to restore her chest and she had no time for downing another as the reason for her injuries was focused on her again.

Ignoring their protest she got her legs under her and dove away from the crates she had been flung against. Just in time too as the massive blue fist of the demon shattered the entire stack. Dropping low she just managed to avoid the other fist and the large mallet clenched in it.

"I'll make handles with your bones." The guttural speech took no effort away from the blue skinned demon that scraped its cap of horns across the rafters of the forge. "Your entrails will make many strings for bows." Aliza made it back around the bellows and drew back a pair of arrows at once, releasing them at the Smith.

The massive creature had taken over Charsi's forge and had had many small demons, the annoying fallen, bringing him flesh and bone to craft demonic weapons for the corrupted rouges. The demon was almost simple looking compared to some of the horrors she had passed and seen getting through the barracks but none of them was so large or so incredibly powerful.

The blue skinned overly muscled demon was clothed in a simple cloth held by a belt containing many tools of the forge. And on that belt was the shining, in Aliza's sight, horadic malus. Aliza was trying to retrieve it if she could, but she hadn't known that this monster would be protecting it.

Her arrows flew true but had little effect on the massive creature even as they lodged deep into its neck and shoulder. Aliza scarcely had time to move away as that massive maul in the demon's hand destroyed the bellows, stone mount and cloth pumps all at once. She retreated again, dropping behind the anvil this time, and readied another arrow.

The day hadn't started off bad. The start of the attack had even gone well as both teams had swarmed into the outer cloister and slaughtered, it wasn't a fight, the foul creatures there. However things got only harder as the small group of heroes and the countless packs of warriors advanced into the barracks. At some point Aliza and Malcolm had become separated from the rest of the Knifes Edge and ended up going further away from the stairs and into the more demon infested parts of the barracks.

They had come upon the forge soon enough and they had simply strolled in swatting fallen and crushing the occasional skeleton. The smith was there however and as they had each come out into the main forge he had struck out from around the corner. Malcolm was still a pile in the far corner where the Smith's mallet had flung him and while the shattered ribs Aliza had suffered from his fist where mostly healed the rest of her battered body was slowing her down.

The head of the Smith's mallet smashed down on the anvil and the stout stand it stood upon shifted from the impact. Aliza fired as the massive demon leaned over the anvil and his weapon. The demon snapped back with a roar of rage and injury as the shaft had shot deep into his mouth and out his cheek.

Aliza was scrambling away again as the mallet came down again, the anvil rang like a struck bell and the stone footing it was on spit and started to tumble. Aliza drew another arrow, pausing long enough to stab it through the eye of an unfortunate fallen that had rushed her, and drew the bloody gray crusted arrow back and release it at the fallen shaman she now saw hiding in the dark recesses behind a crate of raw steel ingots.

Hearing the air being torn behind her she dove forward, scarcely escaping the massive mallet that shattered several stone tiles on the floor. She managed to put another pair of arrows in the Smith's side as he recklessly vented his rage on a fallen that happened too close. The smith turned away from the stain on the ground that had been a demon moments before and started for her once more. The massive demon appeared to be inescapable in such a location.

Aliza couldn't get the room to take a good steady shot at the demons little hate filled eyes. As it was the demon scarcely gave her time to get out from under its attacks. She could almost think the blue monster was taunting her, if its encompassing rage left it that much thought. Ducking under another swing of that mallet Aliza was caught by the demons other fist.

She had landed next to the forge itself this time, the heat of the coals glowing at her back as she managed to turn over and stare up at the demon as it advanced on her. The creature was standing over her, angry foul breath steaming from its nostrils and blood stemming down its body from where dozens of her arrows had splintered or torn free. With the red\ orange light of the forge lighting everything it was a frightful image as the Smith sneered at her with its ruined cheek showing rotting sharp edged teeth.

The hammer rose and Aliza's arm wouldn't move, wouldn't bring her bow up, wouldn't draw QuickFrost, wouldn't do anything but spasm with pain. Aliza shut her eyes and waited while still trying to move her arm to do something. The rush of wind off the falling mallet, the massive shock as it struck and moved on to shatter the forge and cast glowing embers around her and the demon.

It was several long moments before Aliza realized that she wasn't dead, or even injured except her arm and the myriad of other little harms. Slowly opening an eye she found herself starring at the Smith and winced again before she realized that she was also seeing Malcolm. Malcolm was grappling with the demon, massive weapon calloused hands locked with blood stained blue, and was shoving with all his might even as the Smith growled and shoved back harder. Stumbling to her feet Aliza realized that the smith was short a hand, Malcolm clutched at the bloody stump as it threatened to drive though his throat, and the hand, as well as the mallet it still clutched, was cooking in the embers of the forge.

Aliza came back to her senses as Malcolm was forced too his knees with a grunt of pain. The Smith was stronger than the massive barbarian. Catching up an arrow Aliza drew back with an unsteady hand and released. The arrow took the demon in the cheek rather than the eye she had meant it too but the pain of the arrow lodging in either tongue or gums made the demon roar in pain and bring his hand up to his face. Malcolm acted instantly as his hand was freed.

Without time for his weapons the massive barbarian seized one of the splintered shafts Aliza had left in their enemy and ripped it free. Raising the iron tipped arrow far overhead he stabbed it down, piercing the demons snout and stapling its tongue down as the head passed through the bottom of the jaw and into the thought.

The demon was spouting gouts of blood from face and neck but even then it managed to draw back its bleeding stump and try to thrust it though the great man who had killed it. The wrist clashed harmlessly against Malcolm's armor and left a bloody print to match what had splattered over Malcolm. The smith stumbled backwards grasping at its neck and glaring at Malcolm with dimming eyes. Aliza used her other hand to bring up QuickFrost and loosed an arrow.

The new arrow crossed the first one logged in the Smith's throat and flew on thru to leave his neck in a spray of red ice and shatter against the far wall of the forge. The smith tottered then and fell as its face and body slackened. Aliza took a potion from her belt and drank some of it before turning the bottle over above her arm and letting the healing properties enter her wounds directly. She was flexing her arm back into feeling when she realized that Malcolm was still panting and huffing while glaring at the dead demon.

For a moment she feared he was trapped in a berserkers rage but then she saw the trail of blood running from under his invincible armor. What Aliza had mistaken for Glaring was the glazed haze of pain. Working quickly she moved to the overly large man and pulled one of those yellow vials free of his belt and tried to pull the skull stopper free of the twisted bottle. Glaring at the small skull Aliza gasped and almost dropped the vial as she thought for a moment that one maggoty eye was looking at her.

A large hand caught the vial however and still panting Malcolm brought the bottle to his mouth and bit the scull stopper of with a crunch of glass. Shards of glass tearing his tongue and bubbling hissing piss yellow fluid running down to his belly where its magic burned with feverish intensity as it spread out to his wounded body. Aliza saw all of this without opening herself to the magic, such was the strength of the potion and it magic.

In instants Malcolm's wounds, those visible and otherwise, vanished completely without even draining that massive mans energy. Still fighting of the fading phantoms of pain Malcolm stumbled over to retrieve the massive axe he had used to sever the smith's hand. Feeling terrible herself Aliza made her self move over to the demon that had nearly flattened her, several times, and pull the horadic malus from it's belt. Upending the greasy belt pouch rewarded her a few coins and an odd little stone that she almost let drop from her fingers.

Looking at the symbol carved on it however made he pause and wonder what it could be. It didn't give off any energy she could fell or see though the magic and the strong seemed rather heavy for its size. "What have you found little one?" Aliza stood up strait and turned to find Malcolm contemplating the mallet that was starting to glow in the forge among the cooking bones of the smith's hand.

"Some stone." Aliza dropped the stone in her belt pouch despite her dismissive tone. "We should go find the rest of the knifes edge, or get this maul out to the encampment. The hammer's stroke might have taken the inner sanctuary already.

Malcolm nodded and drew his axe up onto his shoulder before turning back to the doorway of the forge. Aliza tested her bowstring as she trotted after him, ready for what monster might have missed death during their trip here or came along after. Despite her ails and pains the thrum of victory sung in her veins and left her eyes glowing.

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Deeper in the winding tunnels of the great monastery, deeper then the warring hammer's stroke or the questing knife's edge, another sought something. His eyes used to the black of tombs and unbothered by the smells seeping from broken caskets, Payton bent over the dieing monster before him and drew one of his knifes, a whisper thin blade that would vanish if turned on edge, along a strange organ located behind the black heart and between the lungs.

The organ resisted the first cut and the second but flowered open like a spring bloom after the third. Observing the twittering flesh inside for a moment Payton gestured to the large golem beside him. A stony fist flattened the creature's already misshapen head and the organ stopped twitching. As it did a little light appeared and a fanged worm lunged out of the putrefying flesh.

Catching the worm Payton deftly pulled a bottle from his pack and slid the adolescent pain worm inside. The worm stopped moving as the charm on the bottle stopped time within, returning the bottle to his pack Payton stood and looked about the little hall he was in. seeing that only two of his skeletal minions had survived further battles while he was intent on the pain worm he gestured to the dissected corpse before him.

The flesh shredded apart as the bone leapt to take up new positions according to the sprit he pulled from the neither to guide it. Payton was rather surprised to see that in letting the sprit shape the form he had summoned something rather like an ape. "How odd." Turning to another corpse at hand he summoned a skeleton minion from it as well, this time the bones had a rather difficult time forming according to the sprit. The end result being an ungainly snake formed of mammalian bones.

"Possibilities…" dismissing the snaky skeleton Payton turned and began down the halls once again looking for deeper paths and any secrets he might find. His minions tromped along with him, rattling bones and slumping clunking clay. Turning a knife over his fingers Payton considered the little skull hanging from his belt, and the spark that looked up at him from within. "Possible…"

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Short but oh well. I had to end this here or go back to Aliza with a big gap in the time line. Don't worry, you will see what the rest of the heroes were doing. 


End file.
